Preface for Pastors and Parents
I’m continuing to flesh out the story of the passion with this children’s sermon on John 19:1-16. I want you to have resources for Holy Week, whether you’re serving a church or reading to your kids. But I’m also prompted by a special request from friends at Lakeview Mennonite Church, where they will be focusing on this text on the 5th Sunday of Lent.
It is challenging to know just what to do with the passion and children. Once a woman told me her kids actually didn’t know that Jesus had died. It seemed so painful to present the fact of Good Friday, and she had worked to help them love Jesus, trusting that he is near. It’s a dilemma.
There are other communities that go to the opposite extreme, telling small children of the sufferings of Jesus in the most gory detail, seemingly not realizing how scary this must be. Or perhaps, truth be told, some Christians think that they will scare children into giving their lives to Christ.
Personally, I think that many, many adults have a hard time processing how the sufferings of Jesus are really the means of their own forgiveness. It is a hard set of concepts to make sense of, and all the more so when you are a little kid.
So what I do in this children’s sermon on John 19:1-16 is I just retell the story. It is one of the stories in the Gospel, and at the right time everyone, even kids, should hear it. I’ve added some details to try to make sense of what Pilate says and does. Without some fleshing out, the Gospel narrative can be a bit confusing. You can let me know if those additions and explanations make sense to you or not.
A Children’s Sermon on John 19:1-16
Good morning, kids! I’m so glad to see you in worship this morning. Thanks for coming up to hear the children’s sermon.
This story is one small part of a longer story. It is the long story of the longest, hardest day in Jesus’ life. It was the very last day of Jesus’ life among us. The day that he was killed.
After Jesus was arrested, he spent quite a while with the Roman governor — a man named Pontius Pilate.
Before today’s part of the story starts, Pontius Pilate had already asked Jesus if he thought he was the king of the Jews. Jesus had answered that his Kingdom was not like kingdoms here on earth.
Confused
That’s where today’s story starts. Mr. Pilate was kind of confused. The right thing to do was to let Jesus go free. But if he let Jesus go, the crowd outside would be very mad at him.
Then the governor had an idea. Mr. Pilate said to the soldiers, “Hey, those people outside want me to kill this man. I don’t want to do that. How about you guys just give him a whipping? Then maybe we can let him go.”
The soldier got a gleam in his eye. He was the sort of person who kind of enjoyed hurting people. “Sure boss. Hey, um, you mind if we have a little fun with him? Tease him a bit?”
“Go ahead,” said Pontius Pilate. “Just get him out of my office.”
Beaten
The soldiers took Jesus down to the basement. They whipped him, like the governor had said. But then they started to tease him.
“Oh, so you’re a rich and mighty king are you?” they said, “Well you should have a royal robe!”
Usually kings wore purple robes. There was a pile of old curtains there, from the governor’s palace upstairs. Some of the old curtains were purple. So the soldiers wrapped a purple curtain around Jesus’ shoulders.
“There, your highness!” they said. Then they laughed at him.
Jesus still stood tall. He still looked at them with his big brown eyes all full of love.
“Oh!” said someone, “His majesty needs a crown! Give me a minute”
Then he ducked outside. In the garden he found a rose bush. You know how roses have sharp hard thorns? He cut off some of the long thorny stems. He twisted them together as he walked back to the dungeon.
“Hey look guys!” he said showing his friends the circle of thorny stems he’d made. “A crown for his majesty the king!”
And he came over and put it down hard on Jesus’ head. Well that hurt a lot, of course. The thorns poked into Jesus’ scalp and blood dripped into his hair and onto his face.
“Hail the king!” they said, bowing down
Then they stopped teasing Jesus and they just hit him. “That’s what you get for pretending to be a big time king!”
But when Jesus stood back up, bleeding and bruised, he still stood tall and straight. He still looked at the soldiers with love — but he was sad to see what kind of people they had become.
Back to Pilate
The soldiers brought Jesus back to the governor’s office. There he stood, in his crown of thorns and his dirty purple robes spotted with blood.
“Well let’s see if our friends outside are satisfied,” Mr. Pilate said. And he led Jesus out onto the balcony.
The crowd was still there, waiting to see what would happen to Jesus.
The governor called out to the crowd, pointing at Jesus, saying “Look at him! Here’s your man!”
Then a voice came from the middle of the crowd: “Kill him!”
Others joined in: “Kill him!” they called.
“Look,” said Pontius Pilate, “I don’t have any problem with this guy! But I had him roughed up for you, okay? Isn’t that enough?”
“Kill him!” they called out.
“But why?” Pilate asked.
One of the leaders, in the front of the crowd, said “He claimed to be the Son of God. That is blasphemy.”
Pontius Pilate turned and went inside.
Jesus followed.
The governor looked at Jesus, so peaceful and serene, standing tall in his bloody robes and thorny crown. He really did look like a king. It was so confusing.
“Who are you?” Pilate asked. “Where did you come from?”
Jesus said nothing.
“You have to talk to me!” the governor said, his eyes wide, both scared and angry. “Don’t just stand there. I could do it, you know! They want me to have you killed. I could do it! But I don’t have to. I could let you go.”
Then he paced back and forth, full of worries.
Finally Jesus spoke up. “If you have authority, it came from someone above you. What is worse? Is it worse that you do what the crowd says? Or that the crowd asks you to do it?”
Back to the Crowd
Now Pontius Pilate found this all very disturbing. Here was Jesus, beaten and bleeding. But he seemed so calm and so kind. So sensible. The crowd wanted Jesus dead. They said all kinds of crazy things about this man — but Jesus didn’t seem afraid, or angry, or anything. What kind of man was he?
The governor wanted to turn Jesus loose.
They went outside, to the place where the governor usually spoke for the government. He sat on a big chair like a throne. He made Jesus stand there, in front of the crowd.
“I don’t want to punish this man,” he told the crowd. “Someone called this man ‘the king of the Jews.’ Well, take him! Here’s your king!”
But people in the crowd insisted:
“Caesar is our king!”
“If you think Jesus is a king, Caesar is going to think you are a traitor.”
“You’re gonna be in so much trouble!”
And then Pontius Pilate gave the order for the soldiers to nail Jesus to a cross and leave him to die.
Wondering
I wonder why it was so hard for Pilate to do the right thing?
I wonder if you’ve ever done the wrong thing to keep people from being mad at you?
I wonder how Jesus stayed so calm when people were so mean to him?
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You are, of course, free to use this children’s sermon, or adapt it as you find most useful. But, if you use it, please do one (or more!) of the following.
- You can let me know that you are using it, either in the comments below, or using the contact form above.
- You can put a little notice in your church bulletin that your children’s sermon is adapted from one published on GaryNealHansen.com.
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