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(Appropriate for use on Palm Sunday)

Object: enough small stones so that each child may receive one


Good morning, boys and girls. Today is Palm Sunday and it is one of the very biggest days in our church year. Can you imagine how excited you would have been if you had been one of Jesus' disciples and walked beside him while he rode a small donkey into the great city of Jerusalem? (let them answer) The crowds were cheering, and waving their palm branches, and throwing their coats on the road, so that the road looked like it had been carpeted. You would have loved it.

Of course not everyone was happy about Jesus coming into Jerusalem. There were some of the people who called themselves the leaders of the Jews, who thought Jesus was dangerous and working against them. They wanted Jesus to go away and be silent. If Jesus would become king like the people wanted, then they knew that they could no longer be the leaders.

But the people kept shouting and waving their banners. Everywhere you went you could hear things being said like, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord." Those were dangerous words and frightening words to the people who disliked Jesus. These men told Jesus to tell his disciples to be quiet. But they would not be quiet. The disciples had waited a long time for a day like this and they loved it. Other people who had only heard of Jesus began to shout and sing the same things that the disciples were shouting.

Now the leaders were really angry, and they commanded Jesus to quiet the disciples. But Jesus was not afraid of these men, and he knew that this day belonged to God. He looked at the men who were angry with him, and told them that even if they could make his disciples silent, the stones on the ground would begin singing and shouting the same things that the disciples were singing and shouting. Stones just like these stones were all over the road, and they would have made a mighty sound if they could have spoken. The leaders knew that there was nothing they could do that day. It was the day for Jesus and for the people who believed in him.

I want each of you to have one of these stones, so that you will remember Palm Sunday as the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem and his disciples made a great chorus, proclaiming Jesus as "the king who comes in the name of the Lord." It will also help you to remember that even if not one human voice said that Jesus was the Christ, God would make sure that we still would know it - even if he had to make the stones shout that Christ was the King.