Performance: Ignite, Primary Sabbath School, Sydney Olympic Park - March 18, 2017
Brief: n interactive children's story on the 10 Lepers with the key point about being thankful.
Good morning Boys and Girls, I’m going to get your help telling a story this morning.
This is a story that happened not really that long ago, and is told to us in the Bible.
Who here has heard of the Bible? Who here has got a Bible at home?
Well, this story from the Bible is a little bit yucky. A little bit festering. A little bit scabby.
This story is about 10 people who had skin diseases. In the Bible times, when people had a skin disease, do you know what they called it? LLL...
Leap frog? Leopard Cheese?
LEPROSY!
OH, having leprosy during Bible times was a terrible thing! You couldn’t just go down to the chemist and buy a cream to put on it. You couldn’t go to a hospital and get better while you played on an iPad all day in bed. Oh no. You had to live with the skin disease, and just hope it went away.
The problem was leprosy didn’t usually just go away, and this was bad, because, if you had leprosy, the worst part wasn’t all the itching, the worst part wasn’t having oozy skin, the worst part wasn’t when you starting to bleed if you bumped a rashes, oh no, the worst part was not being allowed to go near ANYONE who did not already have leprosy.
This was because if you DID go near someone without leprosy, and maybe they touch something you had touched, THEY might get leprosy also.
This meant you could no longer go to the markets to buy things, you could no longer go to church, no longer go to school, no longer play sport or games with friends. In fact, you could no longer even go home to your family!
How awful, not even being able to go to your family any more.
Because this was such a terrible disease, and to stop everyone from catching it, there were some laws. And these laws were to keep all those who did not have leprosy safe from catching leprosy.
I need a helper, who can be a priest for me? Stand over here. I need two lepers too. (From clean front and leper back of audience) Stand over here.
First law: When sores appeared on your skin that might be leprosy, (comment on bad skin) he or she had to go and show them to the priest. The priest would look very closely at the sores and then send the person away. (acted out) After some weeks, the people returned to the priest. If the sores had healed, (Priest nods head) he could return home. (sits back down) BUT if a leper wasn’t healed (Priest shakes head), the priest would say the person was unclean because he or she had leprosy. And those who were told that they were lepers, they were not allowed to return to their families unless the sores healed. The lepers had to live outside the village, usually for the rest of their life as leprosy did not usually heal.
Before you go, however, here’s another law for those with Leprosy: If anyone with Leprosy was going for a walk, and saw someone coming nearer to them. They had to call out something, Now what was it they had to call out, does anyone know? It was Un...something..
UNCLEAN! Yes! That’s it! Can you all call out unclean for me? 1 2 3:
Oh very good. Can you imagine how bad it was, every time you saw someone you had to call out (points to kids). It wasn’t bad because it was hard work calling out (points), and wasn’t bad because it was hard to remember to call out (points). It was bad because when you called out (points) people would run away from you a quick as they could – so you could never talk or play with anyone.
Ok, you can go back to your group, outside the village, but remember what you have to call out on your way?
Did you know, sometimes if your leprosy was really bad, you might end up having a toe fall off, or maybe a figure of thumb fall off.
That might sound a little funny, but that made life even harder for you.
Now, I need to choose 10 more helpers. (get them to teen helpers for wrapping)
Before we begin, I can’t remember what the lepers had to call out when they saw someone coming?
Umbrella? Unseen? Sardine?
UNCLEAN! That was it. 1 2 3: !!
Well, in this story of the Bible, Jesus... Hands us who here as heard of Jesus? Oh very good. Jesus had been healing people. If you have an answer, put your hands up: what had Jesus been healing people from? Hands up? (blindness, cripple can’t walk, the dead) Yes, he was making all these people better.
One day Jesus and the disciples were walking to Jerusalem. Just as they were entering a village, 10 men saw Jesus coming (get volunteers) and they didn’t call out (point to audience) they called out, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” (point to volunteers to say)
But Jesus couldn’t hear them, so they called out again louder, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” (point to volunteers)
Jesus saw the men dressed in ragged clothing. He saw bandages wound around their feet and hands. Instantly Jesus knew that these men were lepers.
Jesus felt very sad when He saw the lepers. He knew how much they wanted to be well again. And he knew how much they wanted to return to their mums and dads, or to their children, or husband or wife.
The 10 men had heard about Jesus and heard stories of what Jesus had done to heal others, and that is why they called out “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”. (point to kids)
And do you know what Jesus said? He didn’t say “Why didn’t you call out...” (points to audience)
And Jesus didn’t say “Get away from me!”
But Jesus also didn’t say “You should be going to church”
Jesus didn’t even say “Come here and I’ll heal you”
No, no. Jesus simply said (acting Jesus says) “Go, show yourselves to the priests,” and that was all.
That may have disappointed some of the lepers, because they had already been to the priests, who told them to leave town because they had leprosy.
But then they figured out they would probably be healed by the time they showed themselves to a priest. If the priest said they were healed, they could go back into the village. They could go home and live with their families again.
Once they figured this out they all started running to the priest - in slow motion, as fast as they could, and as they ran, their sores started to get better (take off bandages, and spots) and they ended up truly healed by the time they got to the priest!
But there was one man who stopped. He turned around and ran back to Jesus. Praising and thanking God, the man bowed down at Jesus’ feet.
What do you think he said to Jesus?
Yes, he said (point to ex-leper) “Thank You,” and he said it louder... and said it many times quickly....
While Jesus was so happy to be able to bring joy and heal the 10 people it was the one who returned to say “thank you” that brought him the most joy.
Jesus said to his disciples: (acting Jesus says)
“Didn’t I heal 10 lepers?” “Where are the other nine? Are you the only one who will thank and praise God?” “Get up and go. Because of your great faith, you have been made well.”
Joy filled the man’s heart and with a thankful heart, he worshipped God.
Jesus loves to give all of us gifts throughout our lives. Even though some bad things will happen in your life and my life because of Satan’s sin in this world, a lot of good things will still happen too, and Jesus loves to do good things for us. But he REALLY loves it when, after He does something good for us, we stop and say (points to audience)
Jesus: “Your welcome my children”