Childrens Sermon Service

Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. (vv. 38-42)

Object: A piece of white cloth large enough to wrap around your body. I cut a piece about three feet wide and six feet long from an old sheet. You can use the same piece of cloth as the object for all four messages of Holy Week.

NOTE: I begin each of the four messages with the same explanation since some may only use one of the messages. However, If you do use more than the first of these four messages, you might begin each following message by talking briefly about the cloth and remembering the previous message as a great way to tie the events of the week together.

NOTE: For this message, I usually begin with the cloth hidden behind me.

Hello, everyone! Are you ready for today’s story? (Let them respond.) Great. But first I have a question for you. Can anyone tell me what is special about this week? (Let them respond.) This is the week we sometimes call Holy Week, isn’t it? It is special because this week reminds us of the things that happened during the last week that Jesus lived with his disciples and taught everyone about God. Several things happen this week, and some of them were pretty scary, but something very, very special happened at the end of the week, didn’t it? (Let them respond.) Let me tell you what special things we want to remember today.

This is Friday. We call it Good Friday, but it doesn’t seem to be very good at all. A long time ago, the word “good” also meant “holy,” so maybe that’s why they called it Good Friday. Or, maybe it is good because of what happened on Easter Sunday. But whatever we call it, the Friday of Holy Week was a very difficult and sad day.

On Thursday we remembered when Jesus got together with his disciples for the Seder dinner and he washed their feet and gave them the command to go out and serve others. After they finished dinner, they went back out of the city and stopped to spend the night in a little garden just across the stream from town. What they didn’t know was that Judas, one of the disciples, had gone to the leaders who wanted to capture Jesus and told them where Jesus was staying in that garden. So, in the middle of the night, a bunch of men went to the garden and grabbed Jesus. They tied him up and took him to the mean leaders. Then all day Friday, they dragged Jesus around town from one leader to another to find out how they were going to punish him for causing trouble. Finally, they gave him to the Roman soldiers and they took him to the place called the Antonia Fortress. The soldiers made fun of him and beat him, and did all kinds of things to hurt him. Then finally, late Friday afternoon, they took Jesus out of the city to a hill next to a cemetery, and they killed him.

It was not a good day at all, was it? (Let them respond.)

When the men took him from the garden, the disciples were afraid and most of them ran away to hide. They were afraid they would be taken too. A couple of them who did follow Jesus, saw the things that were done to him, and were there when he was killed. After Jesus died, they asked the soldiers if they could take Jesus’ body to bury it and the soldiers let them take it to the cemetery by the hill. They didn’t have time to do all of the things they were supposed to do to bury Jesus, so they just wrapped his body in a white cloth (show the cloth) and laid it inside one of the tombs. Then they went home.

They all went somewhere that was safe and sat around and talked about what had happened, and all of the things Jesus had taught them. But now that Jesus was gone, they didn’t know what to do. They were all afraid and very sad, so they all just took care of each other the way Jesus had asked them to do.

Good Friday is a very difficult day. It is a day we try to remember that there are people around us now who are having a very difficult day, too, and need someone like us to help take care of them.

Let’s all pray together and ask God to help us remember how much God loves every one of us no matter who we are, what we have, or where we are from, and ask God to help us remember to do the things God wants us to do to take care of each other.

Prayer:
Dear God, thank you for reminding us how much you love us. 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.