Children’s Sermon

Luke 24:1-12

New Life

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Luke 24:1-12
New Life

By Lois Parker Edstrom

Objects suggested: An egg. “Peeps,” the yellow, chick-shaped candy that appears in shops during the Easter season – optional.

Picture of a chick available at:
http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?stak=86848868&assetType=image

Do any of you raise chickens? Have you visited a farm or perhaps a zoo where you might have seen a mother hen sitting on a nest of eggs? Have you ever thought about what it must be like to be a baby chick inside one of those eggs?

Let’s talk about that. A day or so before the chick is ready to be hatched it moves inside the egg so its head is near the large end of the egg where there is more space for air. (Show the egg, pointing out the large end.) The egg I am showing you today is from the grocery store and is the kind of egg we eat, not the kind that has a chick inside.

When it is about time for the chick to be hatched it pushes its head through a thin skin inside the egg. Now its head is in the place where there is more air and it begins to breathe.

Then, perhaps the most exciting part, the chick begins to peck at the inside of the shell using its egg tooth. The egg tooth is a tiny, very sharp cutting tool at the tip of its beak. The chick pecks at the shell thousands of times until, finally, the shell cracks and the chick is able to come out into the world. (A few days after the chick has hatched, the egg tooth disappears.)

We are talking about chicks today because they are a symbol of Easter. Baby chicks remind us that Easter is about new life. The Bible tells us that after Jesus died he was given new life and rose up to be with God. (“He is not here, but has risen.”)

Each one of us, as we accept God’s love, is given new life. This new life helps us become a better, more loving person. It is like coming out of a shell and experiencing all the exciting, beautiful things in God’s world. Look around and see what’s there.

Scripture quotations from the World English Bible

Copyright 2010, Richard Niell Donovan