Beyond Cotton Ball Sheep

If the alleluia burial doesn’t strike your fancy, here is another children’s sermon for the first Sunday of Lent.

(Just before calling the children to come forward, put two stickers on your face)

What’s new? What’s going on? I see a lot of you looking at me kind of funny. What’s so strange? (duh, you have stickers on your face.) Oh, that. Right. (take off stickers and look at them quizzically) You know, this is the second time this week that people have looked at me strangely for having something on my face. Let me explain.

You see, this past Wednesday was a day called Ash Wednesday. It’s the first day of the church season of Lent. Lent is a time that we spend thinking about how we can grow to be better people, closer and closer to God. We feel sorry for the things we’ve done that haven’t been good. We try to pray more and to be kinder to others and not to take more stuff than we need. We’re doing this because we need to get ready, because in forty days we will have the biggest and best day of the whole year: Easter! When Easter comes, we need to be ready to party.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. It’s called Ash Wednesday because when people come to church that day, the minister puts these on their face, right on their forehead. (show container full of ashes) See? These are ashes. They’re the dust that’s left over when you have a fire. Way back in Bible times, people put ashes on their body to show that they were sorry for the things they did that were wrong. When we put ashes on ourselves today, it shows that we want to start over with God and start to live a better life.

Now, let me tell you: when I had ashes on my face on Wednesday, and I left the church and walked down the street, people looked at me like I was really weird! When I got on the bus, nobody wanted to sit next to me, because I looked so funny.

Sometimes other people think that the kinds of things we do in church are really crazy. Like wearing ashes on our heads. Or … loving our enemies. Or praying for people who hurt us. Or giving our time and money away for free. Or hanging out with all kinds of people, even people who are different from us, because we know God loves everybody. Sometimes it’s good to do things other people think are crazy. And maybe putting ashes on our heads every once in a while can remind us of that.

I wonder if you would like a sticker for your face today to remind you of how sometimes being a part of the church means you do things that seem a little crazy to other people. (give out stickers. You could, alternatively, give out ashes; the kids have no context for the “remember you are dust” language at this point, so you might say something like, “follow Jesus always” instead.)

Let’s say a prayer together. Dear God - thank you - for making us strong enough - to do things - that might seem crazy sometimes. - Help us to love everybody - and to do good - and to be better people. - Help us get ready for Easter - Amen.

Tags: ash wednesday, lent

This entry was posted on Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 12:50 am and is filed under Children's Sermons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.