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PREPARATION
This assembly works best when done by two people, where one of you is prepared to be the volunteer who ends up with an egg cracked on their head. It can be done as a one-person assembly but you will need another teacher or trusted pupil to crack the egg on your head at the end.
You will need: one egg, towel, plastic sheeting / black sacks and a large chocolate Easter egg. You will also need a willing teacher who is prepared to look like they are about to have an egg cracked on their head – the more senior or precious they are about their hair the better!
INTRODUCTION
As the pupils are coming into assembly give a class worth of pupils a piece of paper with the question, ‘What is love?’ on it, and pens or pencils to scribble down their thoughts. Welcome the students and explain that this assembly will be exploring the idea of love at Easter. Say: I wonder if anyone can tell me what love is?’ Field the various responses and if you have given out the question to a class prior to the assembly, share some of their answers.
Say: Sometimes love is giving up something so that you can help someone else. For example, you may give up watching a TV programme so you can help your mum with the housework or dinner, to show her you love her. Or you might give some of your time and effort to raise money for people less fortunate than yourself because you care for them, for example on Red Nose Day. Now, this kind of giving we call sacrifice which means ‘giving up something valuable for something else that’s really important’.
ILLUSTRATION
Say: To explain a bit more about sacrifice we’ve got a little quiz with a big Easter egg as a prize for the winner and a nasty forfeit for the loser. The winner gets a lovely chocolate egg, while the loser will get an egg on their head!
Don’t use pupils for this, but instead prepare a teacher and another adult volunteer to be your partners in crime. Ask them three questions each, taking it in turns, easy ones to your volunteer - they of course get the questions right. The teacher is given the impossibly difficult questions – they of course get the answers wrong!
Questions for the volunteer
• What are Easter eggs made of? (Chocolate)
• What colour is chocolate? (Brown)
• What day of the week is Easter Sunday? (Sunday)
Questions for the teacher
• When was the first mass produced Easter egg made? (1873)
• What is the volunteer’s favourite kind of chocolate?
• What was the date of Easter Sunday in the year 2000? (23rd April)
As the questioning progresses it is likely that the students will get quite noisy as they see that one of their teachers will get egged. It is important that you ensure that they are listening. At the end, say you are going to egg the teacher as they clearly got all their questions wrong. Make a big deal of giving the large Easter egg to your volunteer and then, standing the teacher on the plastic sheeting / black sacks, get ready to egg them. Encourage the assembly to count down from three for you to break the egg on the teacher’s head.
As you go to bring the egg down on their head your volunteer moves the teacher out of the way and steps in to take the egging in the teacher’s place. You carry on oblivious and break the egg on your volunteer’s head. Once this has happened thank the teacher, give them the large Easter egg, and allow your volunteer to go and get cleaned up.
TALK
We’re coming up to Easter, a time when Christians remember the death of Jesus and celebrate his resurrection. Just as [name your egged volunteer] stepped in to take the punishment for the wrong answers from your teacher, we believe that Jesus stepped in and was crucified to take the punishment for all the wrong things we do, so that if we chose to follow him we can be forgiven and one day have eternal life with him.
There is a verse in the Bible that says: ‘For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost but have eternal life’ (John 3:16). Christians believe that this was the greatest sacrifice anyone has ever made, to lay down his life for the whole world.
You will hopefully never be in the place of having to give up your life for someone, but you might think about some sacrifices you could make, to show someone you care or love them. And when eating your chocolate Easter eggs, perhaps you might remember the Christian message behind Easter, that of Jesus giving up his life for us all.
