Those of us who grew up Christian in the 90s (and I think in more recent decades, but I don’t want to speak for The Youths) probably encountered The Jellybean Prayer more Easters than not. We’d be presented with a little bag with one bean of each color and a note:
Red is for the Blood He Gave
Green is for the Grass He Made
Yellow is for the Sun so Bright
Orange is for the Edge of Night
Black is for the Sins we made
White is for the Grace He Gave
Purple is for His Hour of Sorrow
Pink is for our new tomorrow
When it came time for me to be the one carefully separating out the colors and portioning them into bags, I found myself uncomfortable with the poem. It’s been out there so long that it usually goes unattributed, and I don’t want to question the original writer (Charlene Dickerson, I’ve seen in some places, but I don’t know anything more about her) and their intent. But the power of Good Friday and Easter, for me, has not resided in my own sinfulness and Jesus’ blood, and I’ve come to question the American love for pairing blackness with sinfulness and whiteness with purity. I wanted to keep the jellybeans but find a prayer with less baggage.
And, honestly, I wanted a prayer that told the story. “Red is for the blood he gave, Green is for the grass he made” requires a mental jump from the cross back to creation, which is enough of a leap for the adults in the pews. I wanted the prayer to walk us through the events of Jesus’ final hours the way I’d been taught to walk through them on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and the impossibility of Easter morning.
Was there a way, I wondered, to eat through the whole of Holy Week? Was there a way to be honest about how very terrible this story is and yet how very liberating?
In my search a few years ago, I didn’t find what I was hoping for — so I wrote my own. I offer it here for any other leaders, churches, and families seeking the same honesty about the story and joy in the empty tomb. A ready-to-print PDF can be found here.
RED for the wine Jesus gave his friends,
promising a kingdom to come.
GREEN for the garden where Jesus wept,
knowing he was all alone.
YELLOW for the crown of Pilate,
the governor who washed his hands;
PURPLE for the robe they dressed Jesus in,
once they’d whipped him & made him stand.
ORANGE for the sky as the sun went dark,
a cross on his back, thorns on his head.
WHITE for the cloth they wrapped him in,
when his body was taken down dead.
PINK for the Sunday morning dawn,
when the women went back again:
BLACK for the tomb — empty inside!
Jesus is risen! Alleluia! Amen!