The Palm Sunday story is a fun one, because it's so visual. We started out by having various people coming up to Jesus, one with a cane, for healing, one with a Bible, to ask for explanations, and one with a baby, to ask Jesus to bless it. Then everyone swarmed up and started tugging at Jesus from all sides (he was a little alarmed, but took it well). This to give a possible reason (tiredness) why He wanted to ride into Jerusalem rather than walk as usual. I really don't know exactly why. I don't like the "manipulative" idea that He did it purely to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9. I love the scenario Dorothy Sayers suggests in A Man Born to be King, but that was a bit too complicated to get into for our story.
So Jesus sends a couple of disciples to a corner of the room where someone is standing with a stick donkey. They start to untie it and have to remember to repeat "the Lord needs it" when the donkey-holder protested. They did great!
Jesus also did a great job of riding the donkey, even bouncing a little to make it look real. Great job, Ka Hei! I had passed out various shawls and scarves ahead of time (people keep giving me these things and I almost never wear them, but they sure come in handy for things like this—smile) & kids & adults alike helped to spread them on the ground for Jesus and his donkey to walk over.
I had also found a big bunch of palm leaves at the market, for about $1.20/dozen. I always have this picture in my mind that the people were waving them as Jesus came in, but when I read the Bible accounts carefully, it seems they just also laid them on the ground. But we waved them; there I go rewriting the Bible again. But everyone enjoyed it—makes you wonder how the folks on the first Palm Sunday could have resisted it! Ha!
We added a slight new twist to the story. We had the protester who didn't want to see Jesus hailed as a possible king, but I left out Jesus' remark about the stones crying out. Instead I took our protesting religious leader and had him talk with Judas right there about helping him (for a price) to find a quiet place to "confront" Jesus away from his adoring fans. Setting the stage for next week's story.
For our game "Who Will Be King?" we had the kids do paper-scissors-rock in rotation, to see who got to take three steps forward. The first one to the end of the room being crowned king. It got a little confusing at times as to whose turn it was, but that wasn't a big problem. Some chuckles over the boy who couldn't figure out that the object of the game was NOT to try and display the same thing as his opposite. Finally got him to "play it right" by having an adult volunteer play with him; he'd copy the volunteer & then we'd see if he'd beaten his opponent or not.
Since our story had featured branches, our craft featured leaves. I had bought two different small plants—one with "standard" leaves & one with fern-like leaves. Kids would paint the back (bumpier) side of the leaves and press them onto white paper cups in different designs.
Kevin was supposed to lead the Bible study but then had to work. Bruce was also gone—we had a small crowd overall. So by default, I had the privilege of leading the Bible study, and a privilege it was! With Mrs. Chu watching the kids, there were just four of us in the Bible study—myself (Mary missionary) Mr. Lei (from the core group), Mrs. Wong (new believer of six months), and Mrs. Ng (not yet a believer). We reviewed the story, about how some people wanted Jesus to be king & some didn't. Asked if they thought Jesus would be a good king, of China, say, and then asked why some people, now as then, really don't want to accept Jesus' reign in their lives. I pointed out that it's not just unbelievers, but some believers also want to have the benefits of salvation, peace, etc., but don't want to let Jesus really rule in their lives, to obey whatever He says.
I asked for a show of hands—who has accepted Jesus as Savior? As expected, three hands. Next question, who wants to be serious about obeying Jesus & letting Him rule their lives? FOUR hands? So Mrs. Ng, how does that work? You don't believe in Him as Savior, then why would you want to obey Him? Turns out she also wanted to accept Him as Savior! So we prayed with her, right then and there, all of us! Wow, was that special!!
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