A Fable
There is a fable that Satan’s agents were failing in their various attempts to draw into sin a holy man who lived as a hermit in the desert of northern Africa. Every attempt had met with failure; so Satan, angered with the incompetence of his subordinates, became personally involved in the case. He said, “The reason you have failed is that your methods are too crude for one such as this. Watch this.”
He then approached the holy man with great care and whispered softly in his ear, “Your brother has just been made Bishop of Alexandria.” Instantly the holy man’s face showed that Satan had been successful: a great scowl formed over his mouth and his eyes tightened up.
“Envy,” said Satan, “is often our best weapon against those who seek holiness.
Michael Green, Illustrations For Biblical Preaching, Baker 1993, p. 121.
Some Of Us Stay At The Cross
Some of us stay at the cross,
some of us wait at the tomb,
Quickened and raised with Christ
yet lingering still in the gloom.
Some of us ‘bide at the Passover feast
with Pentecost all unknown,
The triumphs of grace in the heavenly place
that our Lord has made His own.
If the Christ who died had stopped at the cross,
His work had been incomplete.
If the Christ who was buried had stayed in the tomb,
He had only known defeat,
But the way of the cross never stops at the cross
and the way of the tomb leads on
To victorious grace in the heavenly place
where the risen Lord has gone.Annie Johnson Flint
It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a comin’
Tony Campolo tells the story of a black Baptist preacher in the inner city of Philadelphia who preached a sermon Tony says he’ll never forget. Tony preached first. He was “hot,” so “hot” he says, that he even stopped and listened to himself. He sat down and said to his pastor: “Now see if you can top that one!”
“Son,” said the black pastor, “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” For an hour and a half the pastor repeated these words over and over again: “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a comin’.”
“I’ve never heard anything like it,” Tony said. “He just kept saying it. The congregation was spellbound by the power of it.”
“It’s Friday. Mary, Jesus’ mother is crying her eyes out. That’s her son up there on the cross. He’s dying the agonizing death of crucifixion as a criminal. But it’s only Friday,” the preacher said. “Sunday’s a comin’.
“The apostles were really down and out. Jesus, their leader, was being killed by evil men. But it was only Friday. Sunday is a comin’.
“The Devil thought he had won. ‘You thought you could outwit me,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got you now.’ But it was only Friday. Sunday is a comin’.”
“He went on like that for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour. Each time he said, ‘It’s Friday,’ the crowd began to respond, ‘but Sunday’s comin’. An hour and 15 minutes.
“It’s Friday and evil has triumphed over good. Jesus is dying up there on the cross. The world is turned upside down. This shouldn’t happen. But it’s only Friday. Sunday’s a comin’.
“It’s Friday. But Sunday is comin’. Mary Magdalene was out of her mind with grief. Her Lord was being killed. Jesus had turned her life from sin to grace. Now he was dead. But it’s only Friday. Sunday is a comin’.”
The place was rocking. For an hour and a half. “Friday! But Sunday is a comin’. Friday. But Sunday is a comin’.
“The sisters and the brothers are suffering. It just isn’t fair…all they have to go through, but it’s only Friday. Sunday is comin’.”
“I was exhausted,” Tony said. “It was the best sermon I’ve ever heard. The old preacher was saying it and the people were with him. ‘It’s Friday, but Sunday is a comin’. It was powerful,” Tony said. “It was personal.”Quoted from www.mthollywood.org/sermon12.htm
Children Sermon Idea
Children sermon idea, takes some prep time…
“When we visited our son in San Antonio I saw the eggs they sell on the streets. I believe it is a Mexican tradition. I forget what they are called. I had never seen it before. Maybe someone in the southwest knows what I’m talking about. The eggs are hollow and filled with confetti or glitter, etc. The idea is to break them over people for good like, I believe.
Here’s what I did. The eggs are blown out (poke a small hole at the top and bottom of the raw egg and then blow through until all the contents squirt into a bowl.) Rinse them out and let them dry, then dye them or otherwise decorate them. Glue a small piece of tissue paper over one of the holes (the tissue becomes fairly transparent and isn’t really noticeable) and fill the egg (through the other hole) with glitter or confetti or anything else like that. Then glue the other opening with tissue paper. They look like regular old Easter eggs.
Discuss the symbolism of the egg as a tomb and as a symbol of new life.
Tell the kids you made some Easter eggs but you didn’t remember to boil them first (not a lie). Talk about what would happen if you cracked open a raw egg. You can play this up and talk about how you need to be VERY careful because the a so fragile and you would hate for someone to get raw egg all over themselves.
See if you can get a volunteer to let you crack the egg over their head, or toss it around and “accidentally” break it over one of the kids. Everyone is usually surprised that some thing completely different comes out – not what they expected.
Talk about the women who went to the tomb and found something different than they expected. “He is not here. He is risen! (Luke 24:6a) We had a lot of fun with it the times I did it.Linda Eberly First UMC Bennington, VT
Posted on Sermon Discussion list at www.desperatepreacher.comSunday’s Comin’
Easter Eggs
This is an illustration that I picked up from a Facebook comment and used in 2015 at our main Easter service. It went very well – possibly because the third Easter Egg was 1kg. The children were reticent to volunteer for the start but by the time I was unveiling the second egg there was a queue and for the third a whole group of children at the front.
Hope you find it helpful:
Buy 3 Easter eggs with mini eggs filling. The 3 for £5 size are about right. You want ones in boxes and plastic ‘window’ is ideal but quite rare now! Carefully unwrap eggs, keeping the foil, boxes etc. Use a heated, sharp knife to cut each egg open along the ‘seal line’. If you have managed 6 complete halves, well done! If not don’t panic as you only need 4.
Break two halves into pieces, mould one piece of foil packaging into an egg shape, insert broken egg and put the whole lot back in the box (now you know why this is easiest with plastic inners in the boxes). This is Egg 1.Take the next two halves, put them together into an egg shape and wrap and box that. Egg 2.
Now for the fun – take your remaining two halves, pour into one of them the mini eggs that came with the eggs and then add loads more. You want one shell with a mountian of mini eggs in it. Use a little melted cooking chocolate to reseal the other half shell onto the filled one. Wrap and pack as above. Egg 3.
Now for the Collective Worship. Ask teacher to choose a child.
Give them Egg 1 and ask them what they expect to find inside. Let them unwarp the egg. Mega disappointment as no mini eggs and just broken chocolate. Take the egg back, thank your helper and say that is how Jesus’ friends felt on the first Easter day. All broken, crushed and sad because Jesus was dead. (I’m sure you can work that bit out but keep it simple!).
You now need child helper 2 who gets to unwrap Egg 2. That is what Jesus friends found when they came to see where his body had been buried. Just an empty space. Still sad but now also confused.
Now for the fun bit: child helper 3 gets to open the last box and unwrap the whole egg but then you need to take the egg. Start to tell the story of the women at the tomb. They had been broken and sad, then confused and upset (hold up empty shell again). Then the most amazing thing happened. Jesus came and spoke to them. He was not dead any more he was alive! At that moment lift the full egg, twist to break and send chocolate everywhere. Enjoy the children’s delight and surprise and say ‘That is what Easter is about – new life and happiness from sorrow and sadness.’
Works every time (KS 1 or 2) and for All-Age Worship. No need to do too much teaching and theology – the eggs are an Easter parable and will draw your listeners in to wonder and work it out for themselves. Your choice and school rules as to what you do with the chocolate – hand little bits out as the children leave or put it all in the Staff Room.
A Man Fell Over A Cliff
A man fell over a cliff and, as he tumbled down the sheer drop, managed to grab on to a scrubby bush growing from the side of the rock. Terrified, he hung in space, his life flashing before him. In desperation, he shouted toward heaven, ‘Is there anyone up there?’
To his astonished delight, a voice floated down: ‘I am the Lord God, and I am here.’
‘What should I do?’ called the man.
The voice replied, ‘Let go of the branch and, with my protection, you will float harmlessly down to the beach below.’
The man glanced under his feet to the jagged rocks at the foot of the cliff, hundreds of metres below. He gulped, and looked back toward heaven.
‘Well… is there anyone else up there?’
Ready Salted, Peter Graystone, p35
Forgiven, Unable To Pay
It had been the custom of a kindly doctor to go through his book from time to time noting those who had not paid. When he realised that the debts remained because the patients could not pay he put a red line through the debt and wrote by the side of it, ‘Forgiven, unable to pay’.
After his death, his wife was looking through his books and saw all the marks and said to herself, ‘My husband was owed a lot of money. 1 could do with that money now.’ She took the matter to the local court to sue the debtors of the money. The judge, however, looked at the doctor’s account book and said, ‘No court in the world will give you a verdict against those people when your husband, with his own pen has written, “Forgiven, unable to pay.`
From ‘Drive The Point Home’ Graham Twelftree p67
Benjamin Franklin’s Epitaph
In one of his lighter moments, Benjamin Franklin penned his own epitaph. Franklin didn’t profess to be an orthodox Christian; he was more a deist, a believer in a clock-maker God than in the personal God of Jesus Christ. But it seems he must have been influenced by the Church’s teaching of the resurrection. Here’s the epitaph he wrote for himself:
“The body of B. Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book its contents torn out, And stripped of its lettering and guilding, lies here, food for worms, but the work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ’d, appear once more in a new & more perfect edition, corrected and amended by the author.”
“Easter Is A Joke,” by Rev. Dr. C. Eric Funston
Tie A Yellow Ribbon
I remember being touched by the popular song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon.” It tells of a man who’s been sent to prison. He’s served his time and is now coming home on the bus. But he admits that she who once loved him has every right to reject him. He’s to blame. So he’s written to tell her that if she forgives him, she should “tie a yellow ribbon ’round the old oak tree.” If there’s no yellow ribbon, he’ll just go riding by on the bus.
As the miles roll by, all the man thinks about is that oak tree. When he gets home, will there be a yellow ribbon on it?
The song ends in triumph with the entire busload of people cheering as the man sees not one but a hundred yellow ribbons on that old oak tree! His lover not only forgives him, but she exuberantly welcomes him home.
Like the man on the bus, we’re fearful of death and what’s ahead. We know our own hearts, and we wonder if God will really forgive us, let alone celebrate our coming.
But the Word assures us of God’s welcome. The yellow ribbons will be there.
Harold L. Myra, Living by God’s Surprises (Word, 1988); quoted in Men of Integrity (January/February 2001)