How would you tell children about the crucifixion?

[janelle]

4/19/03 10:26:10 AM
I have 3 children who all have been told what happened to Jesus on our behalf, before they could understand the magnitude of the gift. I've never dumbed it down for them. And since there is none good ,but God, I am so thankful for His sacrifice for me. If I were to have to rely on myself to reach heaven I'd never have the peace to know I'd done enough "good" to outweigh the "bad" I do. for it was by grace I was saved, not of works. PS My children also are taught *not* to believe in Santa, Easter Bunny or any other creature who sneaks in homes leaving things behind. I'm not going to teach them a lie and expect them to believe the truth in Jesus. May God's neverending grace be with you.





ALPHA2
4/18/03 7:36:54 PM
HELLO NOT ALL JEWS
just the group of then back in Jesus' time. The Small group had the roman nail him to a cross, Jews should not be hated, they are to be loved. Gods chosen should not be frozen they need Jesus the lamb of God....
Happy Resurrection Day
Happy First Fruits
happy passover
God Bless
alpha 2





ilijatri
4/18/03 4:34:29 PM
I am not catholic, so bare with me, I'm confused. If you claim that Jesus is God, wouldn't his death have already been planned? Wouldn't his birth and also his death been a part of a larger picture.If God planned on coming to earth in the form of man, Jesus, didn't he also plan for his crucifiction? Then why were the Jews hated for killing God? You are putting a man (Jews) above the power of God. ???





upfrontnpersnl
4/18/03 4:22:13 PM
i have 3 beautiful kids who all love jesus and know the story to the full extent and love him more each time they come to me with q's, i answer them honestly. i know there are those of you who don't believe, i'm not going to preach to you, but i can tell you this, it's not all a bunch of info, it's an EXPERIENCE. He fills the void with such love and His presence in my life is incredible, everyday is new, He speaks to me in new ways everyday!





JeffLS
4/18/03 3:22:13 PM
I'd wait until the children grew up so they could determine A: Whether or not they believed it and B: What it means for them on their own without a "know-it-all" adult telling them "the way it is." I think in respect to some of these things all of us are still children and we need not forget that.





KathyHL
4/18/03 2:44:18 PM
alpha2 said,

"TO KATHY
HOW SAD THAT YOU THINK YOUR GOOD.
THE BIBLE SAYS THAT WE ARE ALL SINNERS. ROMANS 3:23"

I don't accept the Bible as a source of factual information. And I don't let religion-sellers tear down my self-confidence, by believing them when they call me a "sinner". If God has an issue with me, he's big enough to handle it himself, without the help of human evangelists.

"THINK IF YOU WERE ON DEATH ROE FOR A CRIME YOU COMMITED AND SOME ONE TOOK YOUR PLACE BECAUSE THEY LOVED YOU SO MUCH? WHAT WOULD YOU THINK THEN?"

I would be appalled. There's no way on earth I would allow somebody else to take the punishment for something I did. Especially if it was something bad enough to deserve the death penalty.






alpha2
4/18/03 6:03:49 AM
TO KATHY
HOW SAD THAT YOU THINK YOUR GOOD.
THE BIBLE SAYS THAT WE ARE ALL SINNERS. ROMANS 3:23
JOHN 3:16
GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON JESUS .
THINK IF YOU WERE ON DEATH ROE FOR A CRIME YOU COMMITED AND SOME ONE TOOK YOUR PLACE BECAUSE THEY LOVED YOU SO MUCH? WHAT WOULD YOU THINK THEN?
THE PERFECT SON OF GOD DID THAT EVEN BEFORE WE WERE ALL CREATED.
THAT PROMISE IS FOR ALL WHO WANT A NEW LIFE.
FOR THIS ONE IS TEMPORAL. GODS KINGDOM IS FOREVER..
GOD OPEN YOUR HEART TO THE TRUTH.
GOD BLESS
ALPHA2





alpha2
4/18/03 5:52:30 AM
HELLO I AM A SUNDAY SCHOOL
TEACHER FOR 8 YEARS.
I JUST READ THEM THE TRUE STORY RIGHT FROM THE BIBLE. THE PASSION WEEK IS NOT ABOUT RABBITS AND CHOCOLATE, YET IT IS ABOUT THE DAY JESUS DIED ON THE CROSS, PUT IN A TOMB THREE DAYS LATER HE ROSE AGAIN.
YOU ALL CAN FIND THIS IN THE GOSPELS OF MATTHEW THROUGH JOHN
IT IS REMARKABLE AS WELL AS HISTORICAL.
JESUS IS HOLY
JESUS IS THE WAY THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE,,,
GOD BLESS
ALPHA2





IAmSaltandLight
4/17/03 5:29:03 PM
queenc:
How can you 'believe' in Jesus if you won't accept His Gospel? Jesus DID die on the cross, a physical death. The Spirit lives forever. Beware the 2nd death! If you die physically without Jesus, you will suffer eternal damnation, i.e. eternal separation from God (also called Hell). But if you die physically with Jesus, your spirit will live with Him forever in Heaven. Wake up and hear the truth before it is too late!





daisy78
4/17/03 1:43:49 AM
as a Christian myself, i beleive that the best way to discuss the crucifixion would be to go to the source. parents know when to bring this up. the gospel that best depicts the crucifixion is by the physician LUKE. within luke's gospel, he tells the humanity and the great love Jesus shows, he does not go into great detail about the brutality of the cross (unlike mark and john). i would suggest begining at luke chapter 23 verse 1 and reading until chapter 24 verse 12. within luke Jesus is found telling others to weep not for himself and asking his (and our) Heavenly Father to forgive them for they know not what they do. most bibles such as a scofeild or a ryrie have excellent footnotes for each verse which will help to explain the crucifixion better to all who wish to understand it. parents should be the ones ultimately to discern the crucifixion. if the parents do not understand it well, there is little reason as to why the children will care or even try to understand it.





queenc
4/16/03 7:21:38 PM
The Universal Creator allowed Jesus to give his life as a willing sacrifice for the sons of men. Keep in mind this is not only a historical event but a symbolic jester. I am not a Christian, I do belive in Jesus because I know he did not die on the cross. Man can not die and Jesus came to demonstrate that, I would tell my child that as long as The Universal Creator lives Jesus lives also.





KathyHL
4/14/03 3:06:55 PM
If I had children, I *wouldn't* tell them about the crucifixion.

I am not a Christian, and do not respect any god who demands that somebody has to die by torture because humans aren't perfect.

Nothing I've done is bad enough to deserve the death penalty. And even if it were, it would be terribly unfair to punish somebody else for things that I did.

If my hypothetical children heard about the crucifixion from somebody else, I would tell them what I've just said here - and I'd reassure them that they're good enough the way they are, and don't need to be "saved".

[janelle]

I, and billions of others, know that God lives us WITHOUT God's having to sacrificed some other human being. God's live can be seen in nature itself, which He created to provide us with all our needs.

He loved us before this man, Jesus, was born, and he loved and loves as after Jesus was long dead. The idea that he had to demonstrate his love by killing somebody is senseless to the extreme.





AreUHis5
3/29/02 7:51:27 AM
First of all, the important thing is that Christ was not murdered. Praise God He willingly went to the cross for ALL. I have made my children aware that had Calvary not been part of His perfect plan for our salvation there would have been no way mere humans could have nailed Him. That combined with His resurrection does away with the injustice factor. They need to know a bit of how He suffered, that lets them know just how much He loved us then and still loves us today.





tinahawks
3/28/02 10:55:26 AM
As a mother of 4 I think each child is different. But to not tell a child that Jeasus died for you would be selling them short. You must explain the reasons why he died for you tell them that he died so that they may enter the kingdom of heaven. Let them know that Jeasus loves them even more than we as a parent love them. We to would die for our children because we love them. Don't sell your child short. They often know more about things than we adults do.





tmaster1
3/27/02 5:30:04 PM
Children don't need doctrinal contortionists or professional psychoanalysts to sense injustice.

Children, when first hearing about the unjust idea that somebody was nailed to the cross and killed--not only for some other person--but for all humanity, do what is natural: recoil. They don't try to rationalize that injustice.

That's one reason I left Christianity, searched for and found the truth about Jesus (see my website at www.tombofjesus.com and read my book, Saving the Savior: Did Christ Survive the Crucifixion?)

Jesus lived a natural life and died a natural death at a ripe old age. He married, had children and lived like everyone else, except for his status as a great spiritual teacher.

He had prayed [read the Bible] in the Garden of Gethesemene that he be saved. And God answered his prayers by allowing Jesus to survive that ordeal.

God answered the prayers of Daniel, David, Solomon, Moses, Mary, Sarah and all of his holy men and women--including Jesus.





believer_in_exhile
8/1/01 12:44:59 PM
The "stories" of the Crucifixion are best left for adults. When I teach the Jesus stories to children, I just say the Jesus was killed. What difference does it make how he was killed to little children! Jesus was a political prisoner killed for his political beliefs. Why do the fundamentalists think they have to scare children into Christianity. Interesting. Telling the crucifixion story to children leads many parents to keep their kids away from Sunday School and Church. John Spong is right--Christianity must change or die!





Jesus_Spong
5/1/01 7:25:56 AM
I believe that this so-called "sugarcoated" PG version of the crucifixion was very effective on my old drinking buddies (abandoned them when I joined the clergy for no exact reason whatsoever.)They are now regular active members of the Roman Catholic Church and I now drink beer a little more than I have recently. It's okay to have more beer than allotted once in a while.





Fronkis
4/24/01 4:09:51 PM
As a Catholic, I grew up with the reality of the crucifixion's horrors, not some sugar-coated PG version. Then again, when there's a lifesize representation in your church, it's hard not to accept the reality. I - and millions of other Catholics - seem to have survived the experience undamaged.

If you present a Made-For-Kids Crucifixion, you undercut the importance of the event.

Far more important for the welfare of children is to fight the culture of violence which suggests that people have a God-given right to carry firearms, and to avoid the meaningless violence of popular entertainment.

The violence of the crucifixion has an important message for people of all ages. The Die Hard trilogy does not.





TheWitness
4/18/01 2:52:25 PM
Concerning this delicate and extremely vital subject I would be carefull what is said to a small child. Most children just can't take in the whole reality at once. I would tell anyone who asks about my lord and savior, but with only certain degrees of detail in the subject for certain ages. Only when the person is about 11-12 years old would I explain the story in full detail. I would not stop there though. I would go on to lead the person to Jesus and over time try to teach he/she to live a godly life. God bless you all.





Foust77
4/13/01 9:56:31 PM
This is the watershed moment of history! The good guys beat the bad guys! Why is it so difficult to teach your children about the greatest event in the history of man?

No, you don't need to describe how Jesus suffocated to death because he couldn't support himself to breath. But concerns like,

"Saying only that “Jesus died for you” might cause him to feel guilty."

are pointless. The whole point is that we *are* guilty. just follow it up with the resurection story! All guilt is removed! All the shame, gone gone gone! But first you have to recognize your guilt.

This isn't something to be scared off. yes, it was a traumatic moment for those present; but for Christians, it is the moment of God's most glorious victory. The curtain was torn, once and for all.

Just make sure the child knows how the story ends. Then everything before that will be far more bearable.





atsuesplace
4/13/01 12:27:54 PM
I go very carefully when talking about things that are so very sad and violent. I have trouble myself just thinking about this event, and at times would rather not remember what happened.