Crafting Through the Easter Season: Prayer Hands

As we continue our journey on bringing the Passion week to life in your home through crafts, our next craft is Prayer Hands.

Crafting through the Easter season from Palm Sunday to the Resurrection is a great way to share the redemption story of Jesus’s perfect sacrifice on the cross that bought us our salvation. It is free to anyone who will receive this gift of salvation, but it cost Jesus His very life and God the Father His only begotten Son.

For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16

Jesus was a man of prayer. The Bible is full of verses that speak about how Jesus prayed often. He prayed for the sick and they were healed, He prayed to God His Father before raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus often withdrew to a quiet place to pray, He prayed before feeding the 5,000, He prayed and gave thanks to God for the bread and wine at the Last Supper and He prayed for His disciples that God would keep them from the schemes of the evil one. There is even a part in the Bible where Jesus is teaching us how to pray.

We see that in Luke 11:1-4

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: “‘Father, hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.

Our focus today is the prayer that Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane on the night He was betrayed. Since Jesus was both fully God and fully human as well, He knew what was coming would be physically painful. He called it a cup of suffering and even asked for God to take it way. However, in the same breath, Jesus acknowledged that God’s will is supreme. God’s will is above our will because He knows the end from the beginning. And so, God’s will is always best even though it may not seem like it presently.

Like Jesus, we should trust God and His perfect will because His plans are to bless us and not harm us. And to give us a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11. Can you imagine if Jesus had not died on the cross for us? We would still be lost in sin and there would be no perfect redemption. But here is the good news not only did Jesus die for our salvation, but He rose again on the third day, victorious over sin and death, hallelujah! And Jesus was rewarded for His obedience to God the Father. The same applies to us, there is a reward for obedience to God and a consequence for disobedience, the greatest consequence being separation from God.

Christ Jesus:Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the Name that is above every name,that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11

Prayer Hands

Materials:

Plain paper
Scissors
Pen/Pencil

Directions:

Fold a piece of paper in half. Pick your child’s favorite color as a bonus.
Trace your child’s hand right next to the folded edge, with the folded edge on the inside.
Carefully cut along the traced line.
Have your child write Jesus’ prayer from Matthew 26:39 in the garden of Gethsemane on the inside if they are able. Otherwise, write it for them then read it together.

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “ “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Matthew 26:39

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