Resources for Christian Education

Children’s Sermon

Acts 1:6-14

The Ascension of Jesus

May 21, 2023

7th Sunday of Easter

Lectionary Year A

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ASK    (a.k.a The On-Ramp)

• Good morning!
• Can you tell me the names of some superheroes? (Superman, Spiderman, Batman, X-men, Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, etc)
• And can you tell me what some of their superpowers are? (really strong, really fast, really sneaky, can fly, shoot things from their eyes, etc)
• What do super-heroes do? (save people / fight supervillians)
• Now…what do you think normal people would do in the super-hero stories if there were no superheroes? (The people would most likely do something other than sit around waiting for a superhero to save them)

TELL    (a.k.a. The Freeway)

• I ask about super-heroes because the disciples treated Jesus like a superhero.
• They kept looking to him to figure things out and fix things for them.
• But in today’s story, we hear that Jesus leaves the disciples – which means they can’t keep having Jesus do things for them.
• At first, it might seem like Jesus is being sort of mean to his disciples by leaving.
• But the reason he leaves his disciples is so that they won’t keep waiting for him to do things for them, so that they won’t keep looking to him to fix and solve problems for them.
• With Jesus leaving, the disciples are then able to learn their final lesson from Jesus: With God’s help, the disciples can do what Jesus did, now that Jesus isn’t there to do those things for them.

SHARE the Good News   (a.k.a. The Destination)

• Jesus taught his disciples how to be God’s super-heroes, just like he was God’s super-hero.
• Jesus did this by teaching the disciples how to pray, how to keep their attention on God, and how to receive God’s Holy Spirit.
• And guess what? We can learn the same things that the disciples learned from Jesus by reading the stories about Jesus and then practicing the same things we see him teaching his disciples.
• When we do these things, then we are learning from Jesus how to be God’s super-heroes.
• And this is what God’s super-heroes do: They love with God’s love, they help with God’s help and they teach others what they’ve learned about God.
• This is the Good News for today: Not only can we learn to be God’s super-heroes, but then we can be God’s super-heroes.

CLOSING Prayer

• Let’s pray.  This is a repeat-after-me prayer.

Dear God,
Dear God,

Thank you for Jesus…

Thank you for Jesus…

…who shows us how to be your superheroes…

…who shows us how to be your superheroes…

…by receiving your love and Holy Spirit…

…by receiving your love and Holy Spirit…

…so that we can share your love and Holy Spirit.
…so that we can share your love and Holy Spirit.

  Thank you and Amen

Originally posted May 25, 2014
Updated on April 29, 2023
Written and edited by Nathanael Vissia

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