08 April 2012
***Intended for Children attending Children's Worship at Karibong Church, Guro-gu, Seoul, Korea
SCRIPTURE TEXT
The Gospel: John 20:1-18 and/or Matthew 28:1-10
The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. --Matthew chapter 28 verses 5 and 6.
"Good news! He is alive!"
Happy Easter day everyone! I'm sure you are happy to celebrate Easter today.
Well, Easter Day has been celebrated by Christians like us for many, many years now. For a start we have two important words to learn of Easter. They are hard to pronounce, but interesting sounding words. They are fun to define and pronounce together.
“Resurrection” means “Jesus is alive again!” or “Jesus is not dead anymore!” “He is risen!” can be confusing. It sounds like he got out of bed rather than came back from being dead.
“Alleluia!” and “Hallelujah!” sound a lot alike and both mean “Hurray for God!” or “Look what God has done!”
That sounds great, isn't it? Let's see how family and friends of Jesus found out that he is alive.
You see Jesus died on the cross and was buried in a tomb. His family and friends were very sad. They were also scared of what might the bad guys might do to them. However on the third day, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb to visit, but found out that the tomb was empty. That was scary. But Jesus was alive and greeted Mary Magdalene. Jesus rose from the dead, he is alive. She run fast to where the disciples were and told them that Jesus is alive.
What IS “good news” on Easter is …
God is proven the most powerful being in the universe. On Friday the bad guys thought they had won. They had killed Jesus and sealed his dead body in a guarded tomb. On Easter, Jesus totally surprised them and blasted out of that tomb proving that God and God’s ways are the most powerful power in the universe. It is the ultimate good guys beat the guys story. Some of you feel you are not very powerful and long to be more powerful, and wish being with the most powerful Easter God.
Another good news of Easter is Jesus' promise to be with us always now and even after we die. Instead of seeing Jesus conquering death, we see Jesus proving that even after death, we are safe with God/Jesus. It is simply the way things are.
The third Easter message that is good news is Jesus forgiveness. You see Peter, one of Jesus' disciples was Peter who told people he did not know Jesus. But Jesus forgave him for his weakness. Also, when we have done something wrong, Jesus understands and forgives us when we feel sorry for the wrongs we have done. So we should be happy to follow Jesus, because he is with us and listens to our prayers.
No comments:
Post a Comment