Parentss and children came along to GUESS at St.John’s on Good Friday (Friday 22nd April). GUESS stands for God’s Unexpected Easter SurpriseS. Participants went through the events leading up to Easter and were encouraged to identify the surprises! 
Christine welcomed everybody and explained the format of the afternoon.
They began by talking about The Last Supper with Joyce. They were surprised to hear that Jesus – King of Kings and Lord of all – washed his friends’ feet before they had the meal! They talked about what people eat at the Passover meal and discussed what happened at this particular meal – Jesus’ last meal before he was killed.
From the last supper everybody went on to talk with Jane about what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was disappointing to hear that Jesus’ friends fell asleep when he was so upset and praying to God but the biggest surprise was that Jesus healed one of his attackers after Peter had cut off his ear. (He told Peter off too and told him to put down his sword!)
After Gethsemane everybody moved to discuss, with Sally-Ann, the events leading up to The Crucifixion at Calvary. This was all horrible and the biggest surprise was that with all his powers Jesus never said anything to defend himself before Pilate and did nothing to escape from the horrible situation. Even when he was dying on the cross he asked God to forgive the soldiers and his persecutors because they didn’t know what they were doing!
Finally they reached the good bit when they visited “The Tomb” with Rachel and discovered the most amazing surprise of all – that Jesus is alive!
After all that hard work everyone went into the hall to do some craft activities to remind them of the story of the events leading upto and including Easter.
They made reversible crowns – one side represented the “Crown of thorns” and the other was a golden crown. The former to remind us about how the soldiers laughed at Jesus and the golden crown to remind us how he now reigns with the father in glory!
They also made wine cups to remind them of the wine that Jesus shared at the Last Supper, and which we still share today during Holy Communion services, to remind us of how Jesus “shed his blood”, i.e. died, for us to save us from our sins.
More reminders of the Last Supper came when the families made their own drinks (there was not enough time to make wine) and a small loaf of bread.
In addition to all that everybody worked together to create an “Easter Garden” of Golgotha (the hill on which Jesus was crucified) and the tomb. This was moved into Church to be ready for Easter Day. It will be there for a little while so, if you haven’t already, why not come to church to see it.
The afternoon ended with a search for pieces of silver in the church. This was to remind us of how Jesus’ friend Judas betrayed him. Because some people found more than others some of the helpers collected them up after the hunt and shared them out equally for people to take home.
Everybody had a lot to take home at the end of the afternoon and a lot to think about!
