Breakfast with Jesus

 I missed posting last week, but since this past Sunday was just a farewell party for Grace as she leaves for a six-month home assignment, there’s at least no catching-up to do!

We didn’t do this story the first time around, but needed to squeeze in something between Easter and the farewell so that we wouldn’t start a new unit and then immediately interrupt it.

So: the story.  Jesus has already died & risen, but has not yet ascended to heaven.  His disciples were feeling a little confused.  They were so excited when He rose, and they thought they would spend all their time with Him like they did before, but now it seems they hardly ever see Him.  So a bunch of them are sitting around wondering what to do.  Finally, toward evening (turn off the lights), Peter says, “I’m going to go fishing!” and the rest decidd to go with him.  So they all get into the boat (lined up single file) and row out to deep water (rowing motions and they were supposed to all walk backward, but no one rows around here, though they do watch the Dragon-boat racers paddling, so they didn’t get the backward part).  They get to deep water and throw out their net (a large hula hoop strung like a spider web), but when they pull it back in, it is empty.  They try this a couple more times in different directions, still no catch.  Finally, toward morning (turn lights back on) they start rowing back to shore.  As they near the shore, a man calls out to them, “Did you catch enough to eat?” (The Chinese translation mentions fish to eat rather than just fish, which I found fascinating…) They say no and he suggests that they throw the net out on the right side of their boat.  They do, and suddenly a whole bunch of (paper) fish start leaping into the net(thrown by the story spectators)!  When Peter sees this, he knows it has to be Jesus.  He’s so excited, he jumps into the water (one jump) and swims to shore (swimming motions) where he hugs Jesus.  The rest of the disciples row back with the full net.

Jesus already has a pan of fish frying on a fire, but he tells them to add some more, and invites them to have breakfast with him.  Underneath the paper fish are a whole bunch of “S’more” flavored goldfish crackers, so everyone enjoyed their breakfast very much.  (The moms had never seen these before and thought I made them myself.  I’m not THAT dedicated!) 

The disciples are feeling a little embarrassed—they had totally forgotten their identity as disciples and went back to their old jobs.  Here is Jesus not scolding them but actually helping them catch fish, and then feeding them breakfast!  Peter tells Jesus he is embarrassed.  Jesus says, don’t worry, just take care of each other in the same way (an extremely abbreviated version of Jesus telling Peter three times to feed His sheep, but I just felt like mixing fish & sheep metaphors in one story was too much).  All the disciples salute Jesus and say “Yes, Sir!” (from one of our favorite choruses).  Peter remembers how the first time they had a huge catch of fish like this, Jesus had said He would have them catch men instead.  Jesus says, “I will make you fishers of men” and they all do “Yes, Sir!” again.

Yes, I know, Jesus didn’t talk about being fishers of men in John 21, but it does hearken back to that first large catch, and I wanted to bring out this truth during the adult Bible study.  Our game also illustrated the concept of fishing for men.  We chose one person as Jesus.  He began walking around the room and tapped someone. That person had to fall in behind him, hands on shoulders, and follow him for another round.  Then the new person had to tap someone else.  That person did not join the end of the line, but instead, since he was called to follow Jesus, he got in between the first “disciple” and Jesus in line.  We continued this way, always adding the new person as second in line, until we were all marching in a long “dragon.”  Nobody dropped out, it was 

great!

 











For craft, everyone got three different fish (already cut out) to color—the front and back of each.  Then they glued them to clothespins so we could hang them on a long string and display our colorful, plentiful catch of fish!

The Road to Emmaus

We didn’t depict the resurrection as we have done 2 out of three Easters in the past. Instead, we introduced two nameless friends walking home from Jerusalem a few days after Jesus’ death. One was saying to the other how the last few days seemed like a bad dream. Then a third person, in a jacket with a hood, came up & asked what they were talking about. They said, it’s a long story, we’d better sit down (the Bible doesn’t have them sitting down, but I figured we’d never get through all this with our three main characters standing up). First of all, one asks the stranger, “Have you ever heard of Jesus?” and our “Jesus” answered without any prompting, “Yes, I’ve heard!” Well, then, you know that he did many mighty miracles, like, remember the time there was that big storm on the lake? (someone stands up and waves a large blue sheet of paper up & down). Jesus just told the waves to be still, and they were still! (someone else stands up, makes a “Time Out” gesture, and the wave-waver stops). He also had great teaching. My friend & I here used to argue a lot, but Jesus taught us about forgiveness and now we are very good friends (the two shake hands). We thought sure He was going to be the promised Savior, but then just a few days ago, they killed Him on a cross. (someone is given two sticks and has to make them into a cross to show everyone). Well, then this morning, though, some women went to the tomb and it was open, and they saw an angel who told them Jesus had risen! (girl in halo “flies” around the room saying, Jesus is risen!). Now, I ask you, is this all hard to believe, or what?

But the stranger says, you guys don’t know your history very well, do you? They say, what? He explains how many prophets predicted that the Messiah would suffer, die and rise again—holding up three different papers reading: David—prophesied 1000 years ago; Isaiah—prophesied 700 years ago; Zechariah—prophesied 500 years ago. They say, this is so fascinating, we want to hear more! And so they invite Him to have dinner with them.

So they set up a table with dishes and a loaf of bread. Jesus lifts the loaf up to give thanks and the sleeves of His jacket fall back, revealing the nail scars in His wrists (which the narrator drew on the spot). They say, You are Jesus! He says, that’s right! He gets up and says, “Eat slowly” (a typical Chinese saying when one person leaves the table before others), and then leaves. The friends are so excited they don’t eat slowly; instead they get up and rush back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples that Jesus is truly risen, they have seen Him. And of course the disciples say, we know, we have seen Him too! So everyone rejoices together.

Since, in our story, the friends recognized Jesus by his hands, our game was supposed to be having the kids recognize their moms by seeing their hands sticking out through the door. But because we had a special longer meeting for the adults this week, the moms weren’t available during game time. So each child had a partner they were supposed to recognize by their hands. But it didn’t work very well. The “hiders” didn’t quite get the idea of leaving their hands sticking through the door long enough, and the “seekers” weren’t highly motivated.

Oh well, at least the craft was VERY popular! We made “Easter bonnets” from paper plates & paper bowls plus a few trimmings, this year including cake doilies, which really made them cute!

The Rich Man and Lazarus

We started the Beatitudes right after Chinese New Year, but then we had this one week before doing Easter, so we went back and did this one more parable, which illustrates to some extent the Beatitudes—the blessed one in this story was the one who was meek and mournful in life.

We first introduced our Rich Man, dressed in a red suit jacket, sitting down to a meal featuring photos of chicken, fish & veggies (a good Chinese meal) and a bottle of wine. We said he had a wall around his house to keep unsavory types from getting too close, & put up a “wall” made of large pieces of cardboard joined together. Lazarus the beggar (in a torn shirt) sat outside the wall hoping to receive alms from the rich man. But when he left his house (my embroidery again!), he would purposely go out another way to avoid passing Lazarus—from behind his wall he went into one bedroom which connects with bedroom two which connects to the living room well on the other side of the wall.

Lazarus wished he could eat some of the rich man’s leftovers, which a servant scraped off the plates into a wastebasket which he set outside the wall. But when he tried to get some out of the garbage, the servant threw stones at him, wounding him (I know, lots of embroidery here, just trying to be more visual). The dogs (boy in a dog mask) would come and lick his wounds.

Well, poor Lazarus was pretty miserable, but believe it or not, God loved him very much. When he died, two angels (men in halos) picked him up and carried him off to heaven, where Abraham (in long white beard) fed him grapes (or at least he started off that way but then pulled down his beard and ate some himself) and water (I know, I know, but I just couldn’t see having Lazarus nestled up to Abraham’s bosom…)

Then the rich man died and was escorted to “hell” (large box with flames on the side) by a wicked-looking masked lady. The instructions at this point called for the rich man to kneel in the box, but our rich man ended up being the boy who doesn’t know how to kneel, so someone got him a stool.

He begs Abraham to have Lazarus dip his finger in water and send him over to cool his tongue. Abraham says, sorry, it’s impossible to cross from here to there. The rich man says, okay, I know, I was a selfish sinner and don’t deserve anything anyway. But could you send Lazarus to my brothers who are still living? I don’t want them to end up in hell like me! Abraham says, let them learn from the Bible how to be saved. No, they won’t read it, but if someone rose from the dead, then they would listen. Abraham holds up a drawing of the resurrected Christ appearing to the women on Easter morning and says, lots of people won’t believe even if someone rises from the dead; it’s whether their hearts are willing to listen or not. (So this also made a nice bridge to Easter…)

For a game the kids had to dip straws in water and close them off with their fingers, then carry them to the next person in line and empty the water into their mouths. Most of the kids didn’t quite get the covering-the-straw bit, but we discovered it worked well enough if they pinched it & then carried it back to the line upside down. Some drips, of course, but it turned out fun.

For craft time we talked about everyone being invited to heaven’s banqueting table if they are willing. Then we made these little “banquet tables”, with four dowel legs blu-tacked to a cardboard table top, a white tablecloth, fancy place settings from the internet that we made into stickers, and little fabric flowers for just a few cents each also stuck on with blu-tack. (Love that stuff and love double-sided tape!)