Childrens Sermon Service

Object: This message makes a great role play. You will want children play the roles of Jesus, a couple of his friends, a couple of Greeks, and a couple of religious leaders. If you have a small group of children, you could recruit a few adults to help out by playing the roles of the Greeks or the religious leaders. You don’t need costumes, but you can add those if you like. Simple robes for the religious leaders and something for the foreigners to look different may be enough.

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Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Excellent! This is a story about something really important that Jesus did, so I thought it might be better if we watched the story instead of me just telling you about it. And I’m going to need your help to do that, okay? (Let them respond.) Great! Here is what we need. We need one person to play the role of Jesus. (Pick your Jesus and have them stand up.) And we need a couple of people to be Jesus’ friends who were with him. (Pick your friends and have them stand next to Jesus.) And we need a couple of people to be the religious leaders from the temple. (Pick your religious leaders and have them stand in a group away from Jesus.) And remember, the leaders didn’t like Jesus at all and wanted to stop him from talking to people. So, fold your arms and look really mean and angry. (Have the religious leaders do that.) And finally, we need a couple of people to be the visitors from the country of Greece. (Pick your Greeks and have them stand in a group away from Jesus and the religious leaders.) Okay, I think we are ready, so let’s see the story.

One day, Jesus and his friends were in Jerusalem getting ready to celebrate the holiday of Passover. They were walking around in the temple and talking with people. (Have Jesus and his friends pretend to look around and talk.) They saw the temple religious leaders watching them and trying to catch Jesus doing something wrong so they could make him stop talking to people. (Have the leaders give nasty snarls.) Then, some people came up to one of Jesus’ friends and said they would like to talk with Jesus. (Have one of the Greeks walk over and tell one of Jesus’ friends they would like to talk with Jesus.) But there was a big problem. The people who wanted to talk with Jesus weren’t from there. They were foreigners.

Jesus’ friend didn’t know what to do so he told his other friends about it. (Have all of Jesus’ friends get in a huddle and say, “What should we do?”) Finally, they decided to tell Jesus about the foreigners. (Have Jesus’ friends look at Jesus and point to the foreigners.)

Jesus looked at the religious leaders and saw them smile an evil smile. (Have Jesus look at the leaders and have them give him an evil grin.) Their religious laws said that no Jewish person could do anything with someone who was a foreigner. They could not eat with them, or touch them, and could not even talk with them. And now these foreigners said they wanted to talk with Jesus. Jesus knew that if he talked with them, he would be breaking one of the laws and the religious leaders could punish him. So, Jesus had a big decision to make, didn’t he? (Have Jesus look like he is trying to make a very hard decision.)

Jesus could treat the foreigners the way the religious leaders wanted him to treat them, or he could treat them the way God wanted him to treat them. Jesus knew that God had sent him to care for everyone, and not just people the religious leaders liked. But he knew that if he broke the law like this, the religious leaders were so angry they might even kill him for doing it. (Have the religious leaders give another evil grin.)

What do you think Jesus did? (Let them respond.) Jesus looked at his friends and said, “The time has come!” (Have Jesus do that.) Then he said, “Do you think I should ask God to get me out of this?” (Have Jesus say that.) Then he said, “No! This is the exact reason that God sent me here.” (Have Jesus say that.) And then Jesus walked over to the foreigners and shook their hands and talked with them. (Have Jesus do that.)

And the religious leaders patted each other on the back and gave each other high-fives, because Jesus had broken their laws, and now they knew they could get Jesus and make him stop talking about God. (Have the religious leaders celebrate like that.)

Let’s have a round of applause for our actors as they sit back down. (Have the children sit back down.)

Jesus really had a hard decision to make, didn’t he? (Let them respond.) He had to decide if he was going to do what the religious leaders wanted him to do or what God wanted him to do. Sometimes we have to make that kind of decision too, don’t we? (Let them respond.) Sometimes people want us to treat someone the way we know God would not want us to treat them, and we have to decide what we are going to do, don’t we? (Let them respond.) We have to choose if we are going to do what those people want us to do or do what God wants us to do. When that happens, I hope this story will help remind us that the time has come for us to show how much we want to do what God asks us to do and care for everyone.

Let’s pray and ask God to remind us that Jesus loves every one of us and wants us to follow him and take care of each other the way God takes care of us.

Prayer
Dear God, thank you for reminding us how much you love us and for forgiving us when we forget that. And please help us remember that you love all of the people you have created and help us let the people around us know that we love them just like Jesus loves us. Amen.