Samantha Keller: Easter Sunday is about six weeks from now. Have you started thinking about it yet? That’s what the Lenten season is for—to prepare our hearts for the celebration of the Resurrection. Barbara Rainey says, even if your church doesn’t participate in some Lenten practice, as a family, you ought to think about it.

Barbara Rainey: We do know about Lent—vaguely and generally. I think kids are aware of it too—they’re curious / they’re interested. So why not take advantage of that?—and say, “We will take this period of Lent—these six weeks—and we will do something intentionally, as a family, to teach our kids about the coming Resurrection that we will celebrate on Easter weekend.”

Samantha: Welcome to the Barbara Rainey Podcast from Ever Thine Home, where we’re dedicated to helping you experience God in your home. Thanks for listening!

Even if you’ve never participated in any kind of Lenten activity before, there may be an opportunity for you, this year, to use the Lenten season to disciple your children. We’ll talk more about that today.

Now, just to clarify…Dennis and Barbara Rainey don’t attend a Roman Catholic or an Episcopal church. They do have friends who pastor an Anglican church. They didn’t attend a pancake supper on Shrove Tuesday this week.

Dennis can’t remember if he’s ever had Ashes placed on his forehead on Ash Wednesday.

Dennis Rainey: I might have, at one point or another. But I have to say, until Barbara really started studying Lent and what it’s all about, it’s like, “Now, what exactly is that about?” You could just say, “Well, he’s a good Baptist.” You know? [Laughter] “He didn’t know about those matters of Lent.”


Samantha: Well, Barbara’s always been passionate about helping families learn about and celebrate the holidays that turn our eyes off of ourselves and onto the Lord.

Dennis: You made a statement to me—in fact, I think it was yesterday. Your real heart is to help families reclaim holidays which are Christian.

Barbara: Yes; most of the holidays that we celebrate have some kind of spiritual founding or connection. You know, even the history of our country and the July 4th holiday—there are spiritual truths woven into that too—but, more importantly, of course, are the Christian holidays that we celebrate every year—Christmas and Easter. Increasingly, people are paying attention to Lent. We want to help them know how to do that.

Dennis: You know, I think families want to recapture holidays, especially those that do have the Christian roots to them.

Samantha: Most evangelical Christians don’t pay much attention to the Lenten season. They know about Mardi Gras, and they may have friends who give something up during the Lenten season, but that’s about it. This year Ash Wednesday, which is the official start of Lent, fell on February 14th.

Barbara explains why she thinks this is an important season for us to focus on.

Barbara: Well, there are a couple of reasons. One is, I think, that those of us who haven’t practiced Lent are curious about it. Those of us in the Evangelical churches—that don’t—we kind of wonder what that’s all about. I used to wonder, when I was a kid, growing up in the Methodist church, why my friends, who went to the Catholic church or the Episcopal church, got the ashes on their forehead. So that’s one reason—I think we want to know.

But I think, secondly, it’s a great opportunity for moms and dads, in particular, to use that six-week period to teach their children the importance of the coming of Easter.

You know, one of my great dreams is that we would be able to elevate the celebration of Easter Sunday, which really should be called Resurrection Day. I would love to see that elevated to the status of Christmas—not with gifts—but with that kind of fervor / that kind of attention. In most churches, we go to church; we sing some different songs on Easter Sunday; the kids get all dressed up. There might be Easter lilies; but we go home, and nothing has changed.

Samantha: Easter can often feel like a one-weekend event that comes and goes quickly. As opposed to Christmas, which starts before Thanksgiving and goes throughout December.

Barbara: Well, and for Christmas, we have the celebration of Advent. In the Church—many families, many churches practice Advent, which is preparing for the coming of Christ. In a sense, Lent is the same for Easter. Lent is the season of time in which we prepare for the celebration of the Resurrection.

It’s just that most of us don’t know what to do in Lent other than give up chocolate or Coke®—you know, give up something. And yet, there’s so much more to it than giving up something. That can be a part of it, but I really see it as a time of learning, and preparing, and anticipating the joy of the resurrection on Resurrection Sunday.

Samantha: One of the big values of the Lenten season is that it can help build anticipation, for kids and adults alike. Still, Barbara says many families don’t have good ideas about how to go about doing that.


Barbara: I think, in the culture, we do know about Mardi Gras. We do know about Fat Tuesday. We do know about Lent—vaguely and generally. I think kids are aware of it too—so they’re curious / they’re interested. So why not take advantage of that?—and say, “We will take this period of Lent—these six weeks—and we will do something intentionally, as a family, to teach our kids about the coming Resurrection that we will celebrate on Easter weekend.”

I think that holidays are a very natural, easy teaching time for families; because kids intuitively want to do something because they know other families are; and, “Why can’t we?” Why not provide something for families to help moms and dads actually do some intentional instruction of their kids during the Lenten season?

Dennis: I’ve been watching Barbara kind of chew on this idea and how she would go about equipping families to be more intentional. I was reflecting back, to when I was a boy.

We really didn’t talk about the preparation for Easter week or Resurrection Sunday. As we got closer, you know, bunnies would show up, little chickens, and then the eggs would be hidden. We would have fun coloring some eggs and some of those things, but there was not the intentional spiritual teaching that really is on Barbara’s heart.

I think this is the big takeaway for a couple or a family who is listening today. This season of Lent can really be a time to capture your children’s imagination around what is meant to prepare for the Messiah. I mean, we’ve read the rest of the story—we know what happened. But Lent can allow us to prepare our hearts, afresh, for what it meant that God became flesh—dwelt among us, was crucified on a cross, died on that cross on behalf of us and took the penalty for our sins, and then defeated death on the third day, rose again from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. As a result, we have hope! We know where we can spend eternity.
Samantha: The team at Ever Thine Home came up with an idea— a way to help draw attention to the spiritual implications of the crucifixion and the Resurrection throughout the weeks leading up to Easter. Barbara explains.

Barbara: Well, we’ve created a product called “The Messiah Mystery.” The reason we call it a mystery is because we’re asking families, who do this, to pretend that they don’t know the end of the story—that Jesus did come, and Jesus did die on the cross, and then was raised on the third day. We’re saying: “Alright! Get together, as a family, and pretend that you don’t know that Jesus has come.”

It’s an 80-some page book. There are six sessions in the book—one for each week of Lent. It’s very simple to do. It’s very easy.

Moms and dads can just pick it up and start reading it. Each of the six sessions walks you through the Old Testament and shows how, from the very beginning in the Garden with Adam and Eve, God had a plan for redeeming us. God had a plan for fixing what was broken and bringing us back into a relationship with Him.

Dennis: And the thing I like about this is that she’s doing it under the motif of a mystery—”The Messiah Mystery”—around the idea, like CSI, where there are detectives—

Barbara: Yes.

Dennis: She really did a good job on this—of going back in the Old Testament and saying to kids, “Did you know there are some clues, back in the Garden, where Adam and Eve were?” You actually find some of the answers, that are in very fine print, so that the kids can discover what the answer is after they’ve had a chance to look at the Bible and, hopefully, discover on their own.

The thing I like about this is that it doesn’t just teach good theology—it trains children how to study the Bible by observation.

Barbara: It also comes with a poster, which we can talk about, in a second, if you want to. They write down the discoveries that they find. It gives kids a way to engage as they’re listening to the story being read. They can write down what they’re learning, and they can collect all of their answers.

So, it’s not just moms and dads teaching their kids truth; it’s an engaging, practical way of involving your children in the process of discovering truth in the Bible for themselves.

Dennis: Let me read just a little bit of the beginning of this, which will give you a little bit of an idea about the mystery that Barbara is unfolding here. This is called “Setting the Stage.” Barbara writes:

Have you ever tried to solve a mystery? Some of the most fascinating detective stories are full of twists and turns that leave you surprised and hungry for more. The clues that led to the mystery’s solution may be complex or turn up in unexpected places.

But, did you know that God’s story, in the Bible, is actually a series of clues? It’s true! And it’s one of the most mind-boggling mysteries of all time. You see, with God, nothing is random. Every detail is ordered with purpose. So, His clues aren’t haphazard or left behind accidentally. They’re purposeful and perfectly orchestrated. And He is eager for us to find every one of them.

Now, you can picture reading that to some young children—they’re going: “The Bible is a mystery? The Bible has clues—that are stuck in there by God—for us to discover?” See, that’s what I like about this—this is not boring our kids with the Bible / putting them to sleep with the Bible. It’s causing them to look at the Bible with fresh eyes and go, “What was God hinting about there?”

He began to hint that He was going to send someone—a Messiah—who would, ultimately, rescue us from our sins.

Samantha: So “The Messiah Mystery” takes kids through a series of Old Testament prophecies pointing to the coming of the Messiah. Each passage tells us a little bit more about the One they were looking for.

Barbara: Each session is going to focus on a particular story. The first one starts in the Garden. Another one is all about the tabernacle. Part of what I love about the tabernacle is—each session, there’s a little practical thing you do with your family. On the tabernacle—the instructions are to get some chalk, and to go outside with a tape measure, and literally draw on your driveway—or out on the street, if you live on a street that doesn’t have much traffic—draw the dimensions of the tabernacle. Draw off the line that separates the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place. Then, sit in the tabernacle and do your lesson.

Now, obviously, if there’s bad weather, you make a tent in the living room with chairs, and cushions, and blankets, and pretend that that’s your tabernacle.

But, how cool would that be?—to actually draw the shape of the tabernacle and learn about where things were located in the tabernacle—because all of the elements of the tabernacle talk about Jesus. Most of us don’t think about that. So, as these stories string together, over six weeks—by the time you get to Holy week / you get to Easter week, you’re so ready to learn about Jesus and what He did. Kids have so much more anticipation—that we really can celebrate the Resurrection in a whole new way.
Samantha: The sessions aren’t long and laborious. Dennis explains.

Dennis: You’re talking about a structured family time which, frankly, every family ought to have, anyway, once a week—something that is purposeful—to have fun and get to know a little bit about God in the process and about His claims upon each individual’s life. But, that’s what Barbara has put together, here, in “The Messiah Mystery.” It equips moms and dads with a bunch of family nights that point toward Easter.

Barbara: Well, one of my goals is to make it easy. I remember, when we were raising our kids, it was so hard to find good material—for one thing. Secondly, to get everything that you need, and to gather the kids, and to prepare ahead of time—it was more trouble than it was worth. Half the time, we didn’t do it like we wanted to. We felt guilty.

I’ve made this really easy! So, all you have to—there’s a supply list to get, in the front—it’s not more than six or seven things; and you don’t even have to do that. But it’s designed so that you can pick it up and just start reading. You don’t have to prepare ahead of time.

It is one of my goals—is to make it easy for moms and dads to use. I realize that not everybody will finish all six—it’s life! You’re going to have interruptions. You’re going to have kids who get sick. You’re going to have things that will happen, and you won’t finish all six. But try again next year. Maybe, next year, you’ll get four instead of two.

Dennis: My encouragement to families is: “Begin now to be intentional about what you’re going to do instead of doing something like everybody else does. Instead, become intentional—like Barbara writes in “The Messiah Mystery”—like God was / He didn’t allow any detail to just be random—He was very intentional / very purposeful. He was leading.” I like the way she puts it later on in the book—she said, “It was like God was dropping bread crumbs—little bread crumbs—on the trail for us to follow so that we could see that, ‘Yes, Jesus really was foreshadowed in the Old Testament. He was spoken of there, and He came.’”

So, when you come to Resurrection Sunday, you’re going to have a whole new appreciation because, in essence, you will have taught your children some of the best biblical truth that any family could ever learn, under any circumstance.

Barbara: Well, that just reminds me of a young friend of mine—she has four boys. I think the oldest is about sixth grade, and the youngest is about four or five. She wrote back, and hers is one of my favorite quotes—she said:

I love that we have a way to teach this information in a way that is fun and very interesting. The whole uncovering clues concept has captured the boys’ attention in a new way—better than if we were just reading passages of Scripture, without the look-for-hidden-clues motivation. Surprisingly, the adults—my husband and I—are getting as much or more out of it. You would think that I would know all of this stuff from the upbringing I have had [she’s a pastor’s daughter], but I feel like a new student. Piecing together the historical anticipation of Jesus Christ is something that I didn’t learn at church.

And that’s one of my favorite comments, because I really want parents to learn too. This isn’t just for the kids. I’m excited that moms and dads are going to be learning, with their children, things that they didn’t know before, in the Old Testament, either.

Dennis: I’m glad you brought that up, because I was going to add that this isn’t just for couples who have children. This is excellent for a young couple, starting out, because this is really a rich, dynamic story of uncovering these clues. I promise you, “If you don’t find out something new, as a result of doing all these lessons, I’ll buy it back from you!” I’ll pay for it, because I went to seminary; okay? And I’m sitting, across the table, reading what Barbara has put together—I’m going: “I didn’t know that. That’s pretty cool!”

Samantha: As this episode is being released, we’re just starting the Lenten season. This year Resurrection Sunday is March 31st. But even if you’re listening later, it’s not too late to start working your way through The Messiah Mystery.

Again, our hope is that more people will spend more time, before Easter arrives, thinking about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as we lead up to the celebration of the Resurrection. Don’t wait until the week before Easter and go: “Oh, it’s Easter week. We ought to be thinking about Jesus this week!” No; think about it from now until Easter, over a period of weeks, and get your kids thinking about it, too.

Of course, we have “The Messiah Mystery” available. You can order yours from our Etsy store. Here’s the simplest way to find it. Just go to BarbaraRainey.substack.com, and click on the tab that says “Etsy.” Then, scroll down until you see “The Messiah Mystery Family Devotional.”

I’m Samantha, saying thanks for listening. I hope you and your family are able to approach this Lenten season with intentionality as you look forward to remembering Jesus’ death and resurrection in a few weeks. And join us again next time, for the Barbara Rainey Podcast, from Ever Thine Home!