” Celebrating Christmas gives us faith; it affirms that our beliefs have roots in the historical fact of the incarnation.
Celebrating Easter gives us assurance; it affirms that Christ wiped away our sin by his great sacrifice and triumphed over death.
Celebrating the Ascension gives us hope and points us toward transformation; it affirms that we can become more and more like Jesus is right now….Without the ascension, we might look around and forget that Christ is the ruling Lord of this fallen, broken world….not just that he will reign when he comes again or that he did reign over death, but that he is reigning right now.”
Gary Thomas penned this in his amazing book, The Beautiful Fight: Surrendering to the Transforming Presence of God Every Day of Your Life. I was reading it several years ago in the weeks leading up to Resurrection Sunday and knew right then that I wanted to take time to introduce my children to the wonder of the Ascension. We love to spend a few weeks building up to Easter and it just seemed to be a natural progression to continue on and celebrate the Ascension (that occurred 40 days after the Resurrection) and then Pentecost (10 days after Jesus ascended)…
Jesus conquered sin and death at the cross and resurrection and He will come again and reign. But He also reigns here and now. As Gary Thomas continues, we can participate in the spread of his reign now by “surrendering to his dynamic, life-transforming presence within us, by letting him change the way we see, think, feel, hear, speak, and serve. It’s the life of Christ in us, continuing his work, exercising his reign, manifesting his presence.”
Focusing on the ascension of Jesus can help us to recapture the dynamic reality of Christ manifesting himself through us!
With that in mind, here is some hands-on inspiration that we’ve utilized to to communicate the glorious nature of the ascension and cultivate in my children an appreciation for and understanding of the ascension.
With young children you want to start by focusing on understanding. Don’t try to tackle ALL of these ideas… With older children or over a period of a couple of days you can venture into some of the application of Christ’s reign here and now! I found this information on the history of the church celebrating Ascension Day interesting.
Explaining and Celebrating the Ascension to Children
Key themes you can emphasize:
LOOK UP (anticipate His return) and LOOK OUT (how can we share the Good News)
- Read Acts 1:1-11. Review how Jesus spent 40 days with his disciples instructing them and opening up the scriptures to them in light of his death and Resurrection.
Read the ARCH book, Jesus Returns to Heaven – a book with beautiful illustrations and rhyming text that tells this account or you can check out correlating accounts in The Big Picture Story Bible and The Jesus Storybook Bible. (We love ARCH books. They were favorites in my childhood home and my kids now love them too!)- Count out 40 days on our calendar to the ascension, starting on Easter Sunday. The Ascension is historically celebrated on the Thursday 40 days after the resurrection.
- Talk about the Great Commission. We have a job to do! If you have the book, I’ve Got a Job to Do, read it. It is a wonderful picture book that helps kids connect and build excitement for carrying out the Great Commission! Discuss with the kids about what this can look like for your family! How can each of you carry out the Great Commission in your local community? What can you do as a family to support the work of the Great Commission being carried out world-wide? We plan to possibly take another #EndBiblePoverty Challenge this summer.
- Read Revelation 1:7 in addition to reviewing Acts 1:10-11. Discuss how Jesus will return again the same way he ascended.
- Go look at and admire the clouds. Talk about heaven. Talk about the return of the KING!
- Make Sky Jello – If your kids are anything like mine, eating a rare sweet treat like this is sure to loosen them up and provide opportunities to review what you’ve discussed! My Sky Jello tutorial is here.
- Jesus Ascending Craft – Do the below presented craft. One year, we made it from supplies I had around here and creative energy I had available. Another year, {hello pregnancy} I was running low on energy and simply ordered a set from Oriental Trading Company that first gave me the inspiration for this craft. Isn’t it nice to have options!?!?!
- Dramatize the story. Gather your legos or little people and have your kids recreate the scene. They can use the craft they just made! This will help them make meaningful connections that will really last! It also gives you a glimpse into what they understand or maybe don’t.
Ascension Craft Tutorial
To mark the ascension which occurred 40 days after Easter (that would be Thursday, May 14th this year), we made this craft so they can re-enact that wonderful event. We had so many beautiful conversations about Jesus, the ascension, His return and Heaven in the weeks following this craft last year!
Supplies you’ll need:
- Blue cups or cups covered with blue construction paper (or possibly painted). We went the construction paper route.
- Cotton balls and glue.
- Ribbon, yarn or thin strip of white tulle or whatever you have on hand.
- Jesus paper figurine.
>> Start by letting your kids play with the cotton balls and gently pull them apart to make fluffy clouds.
>> Next let them spread glue on their cups.
(This is the favorite part of the craft in our home… Glue is almost as cool as fire.)
>> Poke a hole through the top of your cup. Depending on your children’s ages/temperaments and your mood this might be a mommy job.
>> Thread the tulle/ribbon/yarn through the hole-punch and then poke it through the hole in the cup. 
>> The idea is that you can pull the string and ‘lift’ the Jesus figuring up into the clouds. Let them play and dramatize the story for you over and over and over again!
Love it. It’s so important our kids “get” this. It’s so important that WE “get” it!
Every year I mean to do this and…it slipped by me again!!
Love this post and all the great suggestions (as always).
🙂
a
I like the gauze, that’s a good way for him to move slowly up to heaven. Much better than yarn.