Teach Me Jesus Thurdays: Our Sins Nailed to the Cross

This is something we’ve done at Easter the past couple of years. We are traveling right now and I haven’t found wood and supplies to do it this year but I thought I’d share what we’ve done here with you.

How do you explain to a child what happened at the cross? How can they completely grasp what it means to have their sins forgiven when we’re still struggling to grasp it ourselves?

This Holy Week we have followed Jesus as He entered Jerusalem on a donkey. We have read and discussed everything that happened during those final days. We’ve hung our ornaments on our Resurrection Tree, a reminder of each step in the journey to the cross.

We’ve now followed Jesus as He carried the cross up Golgotha’s hill. I stand with the kids and look at our Savior, His arms stretched out, a symbol of the breadth of His love. I talk with them about the sins laid upon Him; our past, present, and future sins nailed to the cross. We talk about the forgiveness of God for those who believe. The boys name some of their sins that Jesus died for. We talk about the kind of love that would die for someone else and of a Perfect Love that died for the imperfect and ungrateful.

And we nailed our own sins to the cross, in memory of what Jesus did for us.

“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.” Galatians 5:24