Clean indeed
Children's sermon
Object:
a bottle of bleach
And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. (v. 2)
Good morning, boys and girls! How are you this morning? (allow answers) Have you ever seen a bottle like this in your house? (show bleach; allow answers) Where might you have seen this bottle? (allow answers) This is a bottle of bleach. Usually people keep bleach in the laundry room or maybe in a cupboard with other cleaning supplies. Bleach can be dangerous if you don't use it correctly! If you have bleach in your house, your parents probably keep it in a safe place -- maybe on a high shelf or in a locked cupboard. Do you know what people use bleach for? (allow answers) We use bleach when we are doing laundry. Bleach is used to make clothes very white!
How many of you have worn white clothes and got them dirty? (allow answers) Probably everyone has done that before! When you are wearing white clothes, it's hard to keep them clean. Anything you get into can stain the cloth. How many of you have gotten in trouble for staining your clothes before? (allow answers) Stains are usually hard to get out! It takes special knowledge -- knowledge about different fabric, knowledge about different kinds of stains, and knowledge about how to use chemicals like bleach -- to be able to get stains out of clothes without hurting the cloth.
In Jesus' time, it was even harder to get stains out of clothes. They didn't have the cleaning chemicals, soaps, or washing machines that we have today. Also, clothes in Jesus' time usually had more stains than clothes that you or I might wear. People in that time had very few clothes, and they wore those clothes every single day! Do any of you wear the same clothes every single day? (allow answers) Probably not! Usually we wash our clothes every time we wear them. That helps our clothes stay cleaner. But in Jesus' time, people wore their clothes many times between washings. As you can imagine, it was really hard for them to keep clothes of any color clean -- especially white clothes!
So perfectly clean, white clothes were unusual in Jesus' time. Unusual enough that they get mentioned specifically in today's gospel lesson. The lesson is about the Transfiguration. The Transfiguration is when Jesus goes up on a mountain and begins to shine with holy light. It is one of the times that God tells us that Jesus, without doubt, is God's Son. One of the ways the disciples describe Jesus' holy light is by describing his clothes -- "his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white." In Jesus' time, just having dazzling white clothes was a sign of holiness and purity. Just as it seemed impossible for Jesus to be God's Son and to be free from sin, it seemed impossible to have perfectly white robes in that time. But God works miracles -- and Jesus' clothing on the mountain was an outward sign of his purity inside. Amen.
Good morning, boys and girls! How are you this morning? (allow answers) Have you ever seen a bottle like this in your house? (show bleach; allow answers) Where might you have seen this bottle? (allow answers) This is a bottle of bleach. Usually people keep bleach in the laundry room or maybe in a cupboard with other cleaning supplies. Bleach can be dangerous if you don't use it correctly! If you have bleach in your house, your parents probably keep it in a safe place -- maybe on a high shelf or in a locked cupboard. Do you know what people use bleach for? (allow answers) We use bleach when we are doing laundry. Bleach is used to make clothes very white!
How many of you have worn white clothes and got them dirty? (allow answers) Probably everyone has done that before! When you are wearing white clothes, it's hard to keep them clean. Anything you get into can stain the cloth. How many of you have gotten in trouble for staining your clothes before? (allow answers) Stains are usually hard to get out! It takes special knowledge -- knowledge about different fabric, knowledge about different kinds of stains, and knowledge about how to use chemicals like bleach -- to be able to get stains out of clothes without hurting the cloth.
In Jesus' time, it was even harder to get stains out of clothes. They didn't have the cleaning chemicals, soaps, or washing machines that we have today. Also, clothes in Jesus' time usually had more stains than clothes that you or I might wear. People in that time had very few clothes, and they wore those clothes every single day! Do any of you wear the same clothes every single day? (allow answers) Probably not! Usually we wash our clothes every time we wear them. That helps our clothes stay cleaner. But in Jesus' time, people wore their clothes many times between washings. As you can imagine, it was really hard for them to keep clothes of any color clean -- especially white clothes!
So perfectly clean, white clothes were unusual in Jesus' time. Unusual enough that they get mentioned specifically in today's gospel lesson. The lesson is about the Transfiguration. The Transfiguration is when Jesus goes up on a mountain and begins to shine with holy light. It is one of the times that God tells us that Jesus, without doubt, is God's Son. One of the ways the disciples describe Jesus' holy light is by describing his clothes -- "his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white." In Jesus' time, just having dazzling white clothes was a sign of holiness and purity. Just as it seemed impossible for Jesus to be God's Son and to be free from sin, it seemed impossible to have perfectly white robes in that time. But God works miracles -- and Jesus' clothing on the mountain was an outward sign of his purity inside. Amen.
