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Object: You need just a few pieces of clothing to dress six children. A fancy scarf and fancy hat for a “star”, a suit jacket and phone for a successful businessperson, a crown or tiara for a king or queen, a huge book for a super intelligent person, a sword and shield for a fighting person, and an old piece of burlap and rope belt for a powerless, “nobody special” person.

If you can dress each child as you introduce them, or if time is short, you could select and dress them before the message, and have each child stand as you introduce them.

Optional: To take it a step further, you could have the children act out their parts as you describe the confrontation at the river. Have the ‘bullies’ stand and face John and then run away when you read what John says to them.

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Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story? (Let them respond.) Awesome! Let’s go!

One day, God had a problem. People had been praying for God to help them for a long time. The Romans were bullying them, the leaders who ran the big temple were bullying them, the leaders who made all of the laws were bullying them. So the people had been asking God to do something to help them get away from all of those bullies. God decided to send Jesus to make the changes and get rid of the bullies. But first, God needed to send someone to start things and introduce Jesus to everyone so they knew who he really was. God needed to pick someone who would be able to talk to all of the people and tell everyone about what Jesus was going to do. And God needed someone who could stand up to all of those bullies, no matter what they tried to do to stop them. So, God looked around to decide who to pick.

God could pick a King or queen. They were powerful and could force everyone to follow them and do what they told them to do. God might pick someone like the Ruler of Rome.

God could pick one of the religious leaders from the temple. They were rich and powerful and were famous influencers, so everyone would have known them. God could have picked one of the Sadducees to do the job.

God could have picked one of the powerful lawmakers to do the job. They were very smart, had lots of power, and could force the people to either follow them or be thrown in jail. One of the Pharisees could have been the one God picked.

God could have picked a powerful fighter, to lead the battle against the bullies. God could have picked one of the Zealots who had swords to fight with, or God could even have picked an army of angels to go down and fight the battle.

Or, God could have picked a man named John, who had no power at all, lived somewhere out in the desert and ate honey and bugs, and didn’t even have enough money to buy clean clothes to wear. John didn’t have a sword, and most people had never even heard of him before.

So, with all of those choices, does anyone remember who God picked? (Let them respond.)

God picked a man called John.

When people heard about John, they all thought that God must be crazy! John wasn’t rich or powerful, and he sure didn’t look like someone who could do the job, did he? But when John started telling people about Jesus, more and more people started coming to see him.

One day a bunch of the bullies heard that John was talking to people down by the Jordan River, so they got together and went there to scare him and make him stop causing problems. Some of the Romans went, and some of the temple leaders went, and some of the Sadducees went, and some of the Pharisees went, and even some of the fighters went. They believed John would be afraid when he saw them and he would run away. They bullied everyone else, so they figured they could bully John, too. But does anyone remember what happened? (Let them respond.)

The bullies went to the river where John was taking, and they all stood in a line by the water and started at John. John saw the bullies standing by the river. He stopped talking. The rest of the people wondered what John was going to do. Most of them thought he was going to get scared and turn around and run back to the desert.

And what did John do? (Let them respond.) He walked over to the side of the river and looked at the bullies and said: “You bunch of snakes! Who told you to come down here and try to stop God from changing things? You think you are special, but I tell you that if you don’t stop bullying everyone, God is going to come down here and mow you down just like somebody cuts down weeds and throws them into a fire.”

John didn’t turn around and run back home, did he? (Let them respond.) Nope! But the bullies sure did. Everyone was surprised. John didn’t look like the person who could do what God wanted him to do, but he surprised them all, didn’t he? (Let them respond.) They all thought God had made a mistake picking John, but they were surprised, weren’t they? (Let them respond.)

I wonder if God might surprise us like that again this Christmas? Sometimes we see people and we think we know who they are and what they can do, don't we? (Let them respond.) Maybe we see someone who doesn’t dress very fancy, or maybe they don’t talk very fancy, or maybe they don’t have fancy things, and we think they just aren’t very special. We do that sometimes, don’t we? (Let them respond.) But God can surprise us.

As we get ready for Christmas, let’s ask God to help us remember that just because someone doesn’t look special, that doesn’t mean they aren’t special. And let’s ask God to help us remember that God loves every one of us and wants us to take care of each other no matter who we are.

I think that would be a pretty special gift we could give other people, don’t you? (Let them respond.)

Let’s pray together.

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.