Sermon Illustrations
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)
Heaven
Some years ago radio evangelist Charles E. Fuller announced that he would speak the following Sunday on “Heaven.” It was to be broadcast on radio. During that week he received a letter from an old man who was very ill.
Here is part of that letter:
“Next Sunday you are to talk about “Heaven.” I am interested in that land because I have held a clear title to a bit of property there for over 55 years. I did not buy it. It was given to me without money and without price. But the donor purchased it for me at a tremendous sacrifice. I am not holding it for speculation since the title is non-transferable. It is not a vacant lot.
“For more than a half-century I have been sending material out of which the greatest architect and builder of the universe has been building a home for me, which will never need to be repaired because it will suit me perfectly, individually, and will never grow old.
“Termites can never undermine its foundation for it rests upon the Rock of Ages. Fire cannot destroy it. Floods cannot wash it away. No locks or bolts will ever be placed upon its doors, for no vicious person can ever enter that land where my dwelling stands, now almost completed and ready for me to enter it and abide in peace eternally without fear of being ejected.
“There is a valley of deep shadow between the place where I live in California and that to which I shall journey in a very short time. I cannot reach my home in the City of God without passing through the dark valley of shadows. But I am not afraid, because the best friend that I have ever had went through the same valley alone, a long, long, time ago and drove away all the gloom. He has stuck by me through thick and thin since we first met and became acquainted 55 years ago, and I hold His promise in printed form, never to forsake nor to leave me alone. He will be with me as I walk through the valley of shadows, and I shall not lose my way when He is with me.
“I hope to hear your sermon on “Heaven” next Sunday from my home, but I have no assurance that I shall be able to do so. My ticket to heaven has no date marked for the journey…no return coupon…and no permit for baggage. Yes, I am ready to go and may not be here while you are talking next Sunday, but I shall meet you there some day.”–Author Unknown
Magic Lamp
A man was walking on the beach and found a magic lamp. When he rubbed it a genie appeared who told him he had one wish. Immediately the man asked for a copy of the stock market page from a newspaper printed one year later.
Suddenly the newspaper was in his hands. The genie had disappeared. With greed in his heart he scanned the columns, deciding what to invest in, knowing ahead of time what profitable stocks he could buy.
Turning the page, he noticed an obituary column. His name was at the top of the list.
Get the Point Across, p97
Gravestone Epitaph
Here lies the body of Solomon Peas,
Under the daisies and under the trees.
Peas is not here, only the pod.
Peas shelled out, went home to God!