A Children’s Sermon on Luke 3:1-6–Straight Paths

Preface for Pastors and Parents

For the second Sunday of Advent in Year C of the lectionary, I bring you a children’s sermon on Luke 3:1-6. (You can find my regular Monday Meditation on this passage through this link.)

In these lectionary readings we’re still nowhere near Bethlehem. The challenge is explaining to kids why we prepare for the birth of Jesus by hearing about stuff John the Baptist did when Jesus was thirty years old. 

But that’s how Advent works, at least in the Revised Common Lectionary. We move backward in time toward Bethlehem. First we look to the future. Second we welcome the grown-up Jesus. Soon, in the last half of Advent, we’ll turn our attention to the coming of the baby Jesus. 

More challenging still is that I really want to talk about the quotation from Isaiah, with its call to level the mountains and fill the valleys. There’s a twist I do not remember thinking about before: all this roadbuilding is not for US to get to JESUS. It’s all for JESUS to get to US.

That’s challenging for a children’s sermon because it’s all metaphors. Most kids coming up for a children’s sermon don’t yet have the brain development to grasp metaphors. So I’m doing this with the strong suspicion that it may well miss the mark. If you use it, please let me know your thoughts on this question, especially if you get a sense of how the kids respond.

Nevertheless, no matter how great the risk of being developmentally off target, here’s my children’s sermon on Luke 3:1-6.

A Children’s Sermon on Luke 3:1-6 

Good morning kids! I’m so glad you’re here today. thanks for coming up to hear the children’s sermon. 

Advent

Today is the Second Sunday of Advent. 

You probably remember that Advent is our time of getting ready for Christmas. At Christmas we celebrate that Jesus was born in Bethlehem—that God decided to come to us in person, as one of us. Jesus was born as a tiny baby, just like you were.

Well how do we get ready to welcome Jesus as a tiny baby? Our Gospel readings in Advent show us a surprising way of getting ready. It’s a strange journey to Bethlehem.

Advent is about Jesus coming to us. Last week, on the First Sunday of Advent, we looked to the future, to the very end of time, when Jesus will come back to us from heaven.

This week we take a big step backward in time. From the end of time we go back to when Jesus came to us as a grown-up.

You remember how, when Jesus was a grown-up, he did wonderful things. He healed sick people. He fed hungry people. He welcomed lonely people. And everywhere he went, he taught everyone he met about the Kingdom of Heaven.

That’s how Jesus came to us as a grown-up. Here’s what happened just before Jesus started doing all those wonderful things.

John the Baptist

Jesus had a cousin named John. We call him “John the Baptist,” because John went out into the wild lands along the Jordan River and baptized people, washing them in the water.

John would tell the people “the Messiah is coming! It’s my cousin Jesus! You need to get ready!”

Well, one day somebody asked him, “How should I get ready?” 

John answered, “You need to learn to think in whole new ways! You need to learn to think the way God thinks, so you can live God’s way.”

The person John was talking to looked down at his feet He didn’t want to look John in the eye. 

“It’s hard to change,” he said. “I’ve been thinking in my old ways a long time. I haven’t lived God’s way. I’ve done lots of things I’m ashamed of.”

John said “Its going to be okay, my friend. Come into the river and I’ll wash you in the water.”

Baptism

“Wash me in the water?” said the man. “What good will that do?”

“Lots of good,” said John. “For one thing you’ll remember forever that God forgives you. He washes you clean on the inside, just like I wash you clean on the outside!”

“Okay,” said the man. “That’s one good thing about getting washed. But it sounded like you thought there were lots of good things.”

“Right,” said John. “Getting washed will also make it easier to get close to my cousin Jesus.”

“How’s that?” the man asked.

Isaiah’s Poem

“It’s like something the prophet Isaiah said in the Bible. It was in a poem full of word pictures. It went something like this:

“Make straight paths,

because the Lord is coming!

Make bridges across the valleys!

Make tunnels through the mountains! 

If the roads are rocky, sweep them clean!”

“Hmm…” said the man. “You want me to go build good straight roads so that I can go see this Jesus guy when he shows up?”

“Sort of,” said John, “but not quite. You need straight roads so that Jesus can come to you.”

“So which mountains do I dig through?” he asked. “The ones between here and Jerusalem? Which valleys do I need to build bridges across?”

Mountains and Valleys Inside Us

“It’s not about mountains made of rocks, or valleys with rivers,” said John. “It’s all about things inside of you.” 

“Mountains inside of me?” asked the man. “What are you talking about?”

“If there’s a great big mountain of angry grudges between you and God,” said John, “then you need to do some digging to move that mountain away. Build a straight road for Jesus. And if you have a big hole inside you, an empty place like a valley, you need to see how you can fill it up to make a straight road for Jesus.”

“I’m worried,” said the man, “If I can’t make all the roads straight maybe Jesus won’t come to me!”

“That’s not the way it works,” said John. “Jesus is coming to you no matter what. Isaiah said everyone in the world would see him coming. But you can make it easier for him to get to you if you remove the rocks from the road.”

Wondering

• I wonder if that man understood what John the Baptist said about learning to think in new ways?
• I wonder if he understood what John meant about making straight roads inside for Jesus?
• I wonder if you can think of any mountains or valleys or rocks inside you that might slow Jesus down on his way to be with you?

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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.

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