Matthew 28:1-10

An Activity

This paper plate Easter basket depicts the garden, empty tomb and Easter morning sunrise.

You will need:basket1

  • 1 ½ paper plates for each basket
  • Paints in green, brown/grey, and orange/yellow
  • Sponges for painting (dries quicker than brushing and less messy)
  • Scissors
  • Stapler
  • Metallic marker pen
  • Optional: Flower stickers, shredded paper and eggs for filling 

What to do:

 

  • Sponge the whole plate with shades of green on both sides, then leave it on one side to dry.
  • Cut the half plate along the crease that separates the base from the rim. This will give you a broad arch shape and a smaller semi-circle.
  • Sponge brown or grey paint on both sides of the arch and yellow or orange paint on both sides of the semicircle. Leave them on one side to dry.

 

 

  • When the green plate is dry, cut zig-zags all around the fluted part to look like grass.
  • Then make four large cuts, at 3, 6, 9 and 12 o’clock to about 5cm from the middle of the plate. You should end up with an uncut square in the middle of the plate. This will be the base of the basket.
  • Overlap the plate on either side of a cut and staple the layers together. Make sure the rough side of the staple in inside the basket. Do the same on the opposite side.
  • The brown arch forms the handle and the empty tomb. When it is dry, use a metallic marker to write a suitable Easter text on the middle part of the arch, such as ‘Hallelujah, He is Risen!’
  • Bend the arch over so that it spans the two unstapled sides of the basket. It should lean over so that the top surface with the writing is flat.
  • Staple it in place, securing the sides of the basket at the same time.
  • Finally, cut a circular sun from the orange card, bend over the bottom and staple it under the handle so that the sun is rising above the tomb.
  • You can cut flowers from the remaining orange card to decorate the grass, or add stickers. Then fill it with shredded paper and Easter goodies!

A Reflection – The Resurrection told in Chocolate

You are a Roman soldier telling what happened on the first Easter morning. Have all the chocolate bars laid out in order and hold them up at the appropriate moments. The egg should be one that comes in two halves so that you can open it to show the empty inside. The punch line should be pronounced to sound like a cheery ‘Hello’.

A note for my North American and Australasian readers:
The Reflectionary is based in the good old UK of GB and NI, and the chocolate bars lists are those commonly available over here. If you have trouble sourcing them where you are, please feel free to ammend / omit parts as necessary.

30 Pieces of Chocolate

It was one Saturday night, After Eight, and me and my mate, Freddo, were being paid a Bounty to guard this tomb. “Guard a tomb?” you say. Yeah that’s a Whole Nut of an idea, I know.

There was this guy, see. We’d executed him on the Friday, but he had said and he would come back to life so we were there to make sure he stayed dead! No really, I’m not Lion! You think that’s mad? Join the Club!

Now my mate is a bit of a Smartie, so while we’re stood, guarding a dead body, he says, ‘Why don’t we have Picnic?’ And I thought, “Well, why not? I could do with some Time Out.”

So we sat down and we ate our sandwiches – Crème egg and cress for me, then Chomping some Fruit and Nut for one of me five-a-day, all washed down with a nice big glass of Dairy Milk.

Anyway, back on the Topic. After our food we were Flaked out and … well … I’m not going to Fudge the facts, we fell asleep. I know we shouldn’t have, but we did. We loosened our Buttons, pulled off our Snickers (that’s sneakers, not knickers!), and lay down under the Milky Way.

Next thing I know, there’s a Crunchie sound, like when you Rolo way a stone. I sat bolt upright and … ‘What Kinder Surprise is this?’ I said. I couldn’t have been more shocked if a Penguin had arrived on a Double Decker bus!

So what was it, this surprise? Only an angel – clothes all Milky Bar white and hair all Curly Wurly – just sat there, on top of the stone! And the tomb was open! [open hollow egg]

Me and my mate, we were in a complete Twirl –  we were so scared we called for our Mars – but just before we fainted clean away we heard a Ripple of fabric from the tomb. Seems the dead guy wasn’t so dead after all! I heard a Wispa as he stepped out. He winked at me and said, “Aero!” [faints in to chair]

Bible Text

Matthew 28:1-10 Christian Standard Bible

After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to view the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, because an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and approached the tomb. He rolled back the stone and was sitting on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards were so shaken by fear of him that they became like dead men.

The angel told the women, “Don’t be afraid, because I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. For he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; you will see him there.’ Listen, I have told you.”

So, departing quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, they ran to tell his disciples the news. Just then Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” They came up, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus told them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.”

Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.


3 thoughts on “Matthew 28:1-10

  1. Thank you, almost bound to pinch the soldier’s chocolate resurrection experience. It’s lovely and just what I don’t have energy for by Easter Day.

    Like

    1. Excellent (or should I say ‘egg-cellent?) that’s exactly why I wrote it. And it gives you an excuse for eating all the props afterwards if you’re not sick of chocolate by then. 😉

      Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s