The Easter Story of Jesus for Kids

Summary of Matthew 26,27,28 and John 12-19, Written by Emily Wilson

*For personal use only. Do not sell.*

A week before Easter Sunday, Jesus rode a donkey in the streets of Jerusalem. The people
were praising him by shouting "Hosanna".

However, the next day Jesus visited the temple, and he was not happy with what he saw there.
Instead of worshiping God and praying to Him, the religious leaders were using the temple as a
place to make money.

Jesus was angry and he even turned the tables upside down and made the people leave the
temple.

The religious leaders were not happy with Jesus. They didn't like that He was changing the way
they were doing things. Jesus knew the religious leaders were making their own rules and
disobeying God.

These priests and religious leaders started making a plan to secretly capture Jesus and kill him.

While they were meeting, one of Jesus' disciples whose name was Judas went to where the
priests were.

Judas asked them, "How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?" They gave him 30
pieces of silver to betray Jesus.

Later that week, the disciples and Jesus ate a meal together called Passover. While they were
eating, Jesus told the disciples that one of the disciples would betray Him.

All of the disciples asked if they were the one that would betray him. But Jesus only said,
"Whoever eats from this bowl at the same time as me." Judas knew he was the one who would
betray Jesus, but the other disciples didn't know.

Then Jesus broke the bread into pieces and told the disciples that His body would be broken
like the bread.

He poured the wine and said that it was like the blood that He would shed on the cross when He
died for the world's sin.

After the Passover meal, Jesus and the disciples went to the Mount of Olives to pray. Only
Judas didn't go with them. He went to the priests and told them where Jesus was.

Jesus went on his own to pray. He knew the next several hours were going to be very difficult for
him.

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Jesus agonized about what was going to happen. The Bible even says that thinking about what
was going to happen caused him to sweat blood.

That can happen when a person is so stressed out that their blood vessels break under their
skin and it comes up through the sweat glands to the skin.

Even though this was going to be difficult for Jesus, he prayed to God the Father and told him
that he would obey God no matter what.

After praying he walked over to the disciples. While he was talking to them, Judas and the
religious leaders came with swords and clubs to capture Jesus.

The disciple named Peter tried to defend Jesus and swung his sword at the men. He cut off a
man's ear! But Jesus healed the man's ear.

Then Jesus surrendered himself to the priests. Jesus willingly gave himself up.

Jesus was led to the high priest's house where he was beaten and made fun of all night. Jesus
never fought back or resisted.

Then in the morning, the Jewish council called the Sanhedrin, questioned Jesus. They said,
"Are you the Messiah, the Son of God?"

Jesus replied, "I Am."

So the Sanhedrin took Jesus to Pilate the Roman governor. They accused Jesus of telling the
people not to obey the Roman government by not paying taxes. They said that Jesus was trying
to be the king.

Pilate didn't know what to do with Jesus, so he sent him to Herod who was the leader of the
town Jesus was from.

Herod had Jesus beaten and mocked again. All that time Jesus didn't get upset. He didn't
defend himself against the lies that the priests were saying about him. Jesus knew that he was
going to die for the sins of the world.

Then Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate. At that time, Pilate was going to let a criminal go free as
was the custom.

Pilate let the crowds choose between Jesus who was innocent or a very bad criminal named
Barabbas. The religious leaders encouraged the crowds of people to become loud and angry
against Jesus.

Pilate wanted to release Jesus, but the crowds yelled, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

Pilate said his man is innocent. There is no reason to crucify him. And that was true. Jesus had
never sinned.

But Pilate wanted the people to be happy with him, so he finally allowed Jesus to be sent away
to be crucified.

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The Roman soldiers made fun of Jesus as the King of the Jews. They took his clothes off of him
and then put a purple robe on him like kings wore.

They put a crown that was made of thorn branches on his head.

The soldiers mocked him and spit on him.

Jesus was led to a hill called Golgotha. Where he was nailed to a wooden cross. Even as the
soldiers were killing him, Jesus had compassion on them. He cried out to God the Father,
"Forgive them."

The soldiers mocked Jesus by gambling for his clothes and putting a sign on the top of his
cross. The sign said, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews."

There were two other criminals who were being crucified that day on either side of Jesus. One
of the criminals made fun of Jesus. The other criminal believed that Jesus was the Son of God
and asked Jesus to remember him.

Jesus told the believing criminal, "I will be with you later today in paradise."

After this it was the middle of the day and darkness covered the earth. The sun didn't shine for 3
hours. At 3:00 in the afternoon Jesus shouted, "My God, My God, Why have you abandoned
me?" (Matthew 27:46)

Suddenly the curtain in the temple ripped apart and there was an earthquake! After all this
happened, the Roman soldiers who were at Jesus crucifixion said, "This man truly was the son
of God." (Matthew 27:54)

That evening a man named Joseph who had been a follower of Jesus asked Pilate for Jesus'
body.

He wrapped Jesus in clean cloth and placed Jesus in his own tomb that had been carved out of
rock. Then he rolled a big rock over the entrance of the tomb.

The next day, Pilate let the priests seal the stone and put guards around it. They wanted to
make sure no one could steal Jesus' body.

The next day was Sunday and early that morning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to
visit Jesus' tomb.

Suddenly there was an earthquake! An angel from heaven rolled the great stone away from the
tomb and sat on the stone.

When the guards saw the angel they fainted with fear. But the angel spoke to both of the Mary's
and said, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is
not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay." (Matthew 28:5-7)

The women were afraid but also joyful! The ran to tell the disciples and ran right into Jesus!
They bowed down and worshiped him.

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Jesus told them not to be afraid, but to go tell his disciples that he was risen from the dead!

CONCLUSION:

Jesus never sinned. He was perfectly holy and that is why He is the only one who can save us
from our sins.

We deserve a spiritual death for our sins. But Jesus took that punishment for you when he
willingly died on the cross. (Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23)

He died because he loves you so much and wants you to have eternal life with him in heaven.
You can have that when you trust Jesus as your savior. (John 3:16)

Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,."

Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
Lord."

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever
believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

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