3/1/2010 Christmas 2

THEME: The Baptism of Christ

BIBLE READINGS

Isaiah chapter 43 verse 1, Luke chapter 3 verses 21-22

PREPARATION

You need a clear container (bowl or jug) containing water, to use as a worship focus, and an item connected with christenings (e.g. picture of font, gown, baptismal card and candle) as available. You might also like to use an OHP or flipchart to collect children's ideas about uses of water.

INTRODUCTION

Use the bowl of water as a stimulus to collect a few suggestions about the uses of water. The answers will probably fall into three different categories: sustaining life and growth; cleansing; recreation. What would happen if we did not have enough water, or if our water supply became dirty or contaminated?

Show your christening item and ask if anyone can also guess what special church service you are thinking about which also uses water. Spend a few moments finding out what pupils remember about baptisms they have attended or learnt about, and sketch out the pattern of the service for them in a couple of sentences. ( Godparents make promises that the infant will be brought up as a Christian, naming of the child, the child is signed with a cross in water in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. ) The central idea which you wish to remind them of, is that baptism an important occasion when people join God's family, the Church. In the Church of England many people are baptised as infants, but others wait until they are adults, and in other churches you cannot be baptised until the leaders of the church are certain you are old enough to understand what you are doing. Has anyone been to an adult baptism and seen the person who was baptised being ducked right underneath the water?

THE MESSAGE

Christians are baptised when they join God's family, because they are copying Jesus who was baptised by his cousin John the Baptist when he began his own special work for God:

John the Baptist preached to people two thousand years ago beside the Jordan River. He told the people who came to listen to him that they were wicked and needed to make their lives clean. The people who agreed with him asked him to baptise them by dipping them in the river. After they came out of the river they felt as if all their wrong old life had been washed away, and hey tried to live a new kind of life and to follow John's instructions about worshipping God.

One day, when he was about thirty years old, Jesus joined the crowds who came to visit John. He did not actually need to clean up his life, but he wanted to support John and his followers. Jesus prayed and was dipped under the water just like everyone else, but when he came up out of the water he felt something like a pure white dove come and settle on him. At the same time he heard God's voice saying to him "You are my Son and I love you; I am very pleased with you." In a way, Jesus was being told his special name and job and was beginning his special time of service to God, just as Christians, when they are baptised, become special members of God's family.

PRAYER

Thanks that God knows each one of us by name (whether we are baptised or not) and cares for us.