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BIBLE EXPLORE / NEW TESTAMENT / JOHN

Book of John: Chapter 12

Jesus Anointed with Perfume (John 12:1-8)

Lenten Sermon

Rev. Annette Cater, from Tawa Anglicans, leads us through week five in our Lenten Sermon Series.

Gospel Conversations

The story of Mary annointing Jesus' feet prior to the week of his Passion is a powerful one. How much love is enough? What do we do in the face of such extravagance? Archdeacon Michael Godfrey is joined this week by Alec Clark, Anne van Gend, and a fresh and energised visitor from the Diocese of Brisbane: Nicki Colledge.

Reflection

A reflection from Reverend Rebecca Apperley, Newlands-Paparangi Anglican Parish
 
What’s your instinctive response when you witness deep emotion?  In our gospel reading this week (John 12:1-18) we are dropped in as viewers to a dinner scene. Mary has broken a large, expensive jar of perfume and is using it to wash Jesus’ feet with her hair.  With her hair.  It’s a moment of intense emotion offered from Mary and accepted by Jesus.  It’s an action which is replete with the symbolism of burial and grief, and a moment of deep emotion that is so intense you feel a visceral reaction to it.

Judas’ reaction to this act of radical generosity is to remonstrate Mary and Jesus for their wastefulness.  I wonder if one of the conflicted emotions lying behind Judas’ reaction is jealousy?  Not fiscal jealousy necessarily, but more jealousy at the intimacy of relationship of this moment.  Jealous of the uninhibitedness of Mary’s response to Jesus, and of Jesus’ acceptance of who Mary is.  Jealous that Mary seems to understand some of what who Jesus is, and what may happen to him.

Tackling the darker side of our souls is sometimes called ‘going downstairs to look around the basement’.   As we begin to journey with Jesus to the cross, there is an invitation in this reading to explore our reactions.  Would we be prepared to demonstrate our response to Jesus so publicly?  Do we let ourselves be loved?  Do we see ourselves as lovable?  Is there part of us that thinks that God’s love is for others and not for us?  Do we feel like we are spectators, not participants? 

Visio Lectio

A beautiful image from the Visio Lectio project, created by the Anglican Diocese of Auckland. © Sarah West. All Rights reserved, shared with permission. ​
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Activities

Media

Jesus' triumphant entry (Mark 11:1-11, John 12:12-16)

Palm Sunday reminds us of the true story from the Bible, when Jesus arrives into Jerusalem. He didn't come in a flash car or with security guards - Jesus rode in on a donkey. The people knew that there was something special about him though, and they lined the streets, cheering and waving palm branches.

Intergenerational Worship

Intergenerational worship material produced by Intergen Australia, written by Rev Sandy Brodine. This resource includes a drama and several activities that can be used in different ways. You may use the ‘donkey’ and ‘palm branch prayers’ as stations preceding worship and then use them as part of the drama telling the story as a whole community together. Alternatively, the prayers could be used as Prayers of the People in response to the story.

Intergenerational ideas

More ideas can be found on the Strandz website

Chalk Printed Palm Leaves

What you need:
  • Paint -- a water based acrylic, or a chalk paint, in green. It depends on how long you want the leaves to last! Ensure that the paint is non-toxic and safe for children to use. There are several recipes online for making homemade chalk paint. Please choose your paint choice carefully, you might want to try it out in advance, and only use of pathways (not wood), and get permission from the church leader!! (OK, we've covered all bases...)
  • A craft knife
  • Plastic lid or chopping mat (cheap from Kmart) to act as a large stencil. 
  • Pots for paint
  • Paint brushes
  • Masking tape if required, to keep the stencil in place. 

​What you do:
In advance, make a simple palm leave stencil by cutting out a leaf print out of a plastic lid or mat. You can use a craft knife for this, and care might be needed if the stencil lid is made of plastic.
 Get a few big brushes and pots for children to join in and paint some palm leaves along the pathway outside church. The leaves should fade gradually and will provide a great conversation starter for children and adults. You could also do templates of clothes if you wanted to take it one step further! 
Here are some photos of the amazing palm leaves from St Stephens Tamahere, Hamilton.

Harakeke Cross

Flax crosses are a wonderful visual marker of Palm Sunday. Please adhere to Tikanga protocol when using flax (harakeke) in New Zealand, as it is considered a taonga. ​

​Palm Sundaes

​What you need:
  • Green jelly
  • Ice cream (your favourite flavour)
  • Malt biscuits
  • Gummy bears or teddy biscuits 
  • M & M’s or pebbles
  • Bowl and spoon for each person

What you do:
  1. Pre make the green jelly
  2. Say, “Remember our story from church?”  Today we’re going to act out Palm Sunday together and make a yummy treat, too.  First we’re going to make a dusty road (put one or two malt biscuits in your bowl). Jesus and his friends were travelling on this dusty road towards Jerusalem.  When the disciples brought Jesus a donkey, Jesus rode on it.  We don’t have a donkey, but let’s put a scoop of ice cream in our bowl and pretend it’s the donkey. Here’s our Jesus, we’ll put him on top of our ice cream donkey (use teddy biscuit or gummy bear).  
  3. As Jesus rode into Jerusalem, do you remember what happened?  (give your children time to respond).  Yes, people started waving palm leaves and shouting.  Let’s put our green jelly around the donkey to help us remember what the people did.  They were so excited and happy to see Jesus.  What do you like to do when you’re happy and excited?  Well, these people- old people, children, mums and dads and babies- they were so happy that they were shouting that Jesus was king and waving palm leaves!
  4. But some people weren’t happy. They didn’t like Jesus. They wanted the people to stop shouting. But Jesus said, “Even if the people stop shouting, even the rocks will be happy!”  We know rocks can’t really be happy and speak, but Jesus meant that no one could stop the crowds from being happy and excited about Jesus.  We can remember the rocks by putting some m&m’s or pebbles around the road.
  5. Now, we can eat our Palm Sundae and be excited and happy because of Jesus, because he’s our king!

Activities

Worship resources

Church of Scotland Worship ideas

Visio Lectio

A beautiful image from the Visio Lectio project, created by the Anglican Diocese of Auckland. © Sarah West. All Rights reserved, shared with permission. ​
Download
Terms of Use

Alternative Collect

God of the journey,
you travel with us along paths both rough and smooth;
as we celebrate your Son’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem
travel with us into Holy Week,
that through your Holy Spirit we may witness to
the depth of your passion
and be ready to rise into the fullness of Easter Day.
Through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. 
Amen

Simple Palm Leaves

What you need:
  • A trestle table where people can work
  • Green paper
  • Drinking straws
  • Pencils or felts
  • Cello tape
  • Scissors
What you do:
  1.  Have each person draw around their own hand and cut out the shape.  
  2. Tape 3-4 handprints to a drinking straw to make a palm leaf.
  3. You can pre cut a few small handprints to supplement those done by younger children.  Folding the paper in two will mean that you can cut 2 prints at a time. 
  4. It might be helpful to have a few extra helpers on hand at the craft table.  
  5. Use these palm leaves for the drama

Gospel Conversations

Last year we talked about the "blessing of the Palms" Gospel reading, so this year we're tackling the longer, "Passion" reading. This catapults us straight into the tension and darkness of Holy Week. Is there good news to be found as we wait by Jesus' body on the cross or in the tomb? Bishop Steve, Jenny Dawson and Michael Holdaway wonder about this together with Michael Godfrey. 
2023: Every year we read the story of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and it is one of the few scenes we traditionally act out in our churches. What are we to do with the story, though? What do we do with the enthusiastic crowds and their expectations, given what we know comes next? Grace Morris joins us from her theological college in Chicago, together with Bishop Steve and Anne in her role as a last-minute fill-in! We thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, so hope you will too.

Pin Jesus on the donkey

What you need:
  • A large (A2 size if possible) picture of a donkey to attach to the wall
  • A blindfold
  • Smaller pictures of Jesus in a seated position, if possible- one for each child
  • Blue tac
  • Small rewards for all participants and, if desired, something a little bigger for the winner/winners

What you do:
  1. Blue tac the donkey to the wall at about chest height for the children
  2. Ask if anyone's played pin the tail on the donkey.  Explain that today we're celebrating the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, so we're going to blue tac a picture of Jesus on the donkey.  The goal is to get our picture as close as possible to sitting on the donkey.
  3. Give each child a picture of Jesus and let them write their name somewhere on the picture. One at a time, blindfold each child and allow them to walk forward and put their picture where they think it goes.  The person who gets closest wins.
Notes:
If you have very young children, make sure your donkey is low enough for them to reach easily. 
For older children, spin them around (slowly) 2-3x before aiming them in the right direction.

Donkey Mask

Print out the donkey mask template on card stock, and get the kids to colour and decorate it. 
Cut out the mask and attach to a stick to hold, or staple a length of elastic to either side so they can wear as a mask.

Pin the tail on the donkey

​Preparation
A picture of a donkey minus his tail, a tail with a bit of blue tack on the end, a pen for marking where people place the tail, and a blindfold

​What to do
Hang the picture of the donkey on a wall. Get all the children to line up at the other end of the room. One at a time, blind fold the child, spin them around three times, and then get them to try and pin the tail on the donkey without looking. After they have stuck it where they think it should go, take off the blindfold, mark the place with the pen and write the child’s name by it. Then let the next child have a go. Keep going until everyone has had a turn. The winner is the person who gets the closest to where the tail should be.

Media

Putting God First (John 12:20-33)

The theme of today's gospel passage is 'putting God first'

Gospel Conversations

We're continuing to jump around the Gospel of John as we come ever closer to Holy Week. Here, Jesus is told that some Greeks want to see him, and for some reason that launches a speech about seeds and serpents and glory and his own death. This week we have Kelvin Wright, Natalie Millikan and Mannie Marara helping us to find meaning in the swirling and wonderful words of Jesus. Hosted by Revd. Anne Van Gend. 

Kids talk

​Have you ever had to give something up that you didn’t want to? Well in today’s story, Jesus talked about what he was going to give up at Easter. Can anyone tell me what happened to Jesus at Easter? (pause for answers) That’s right, Jesus was put to death on the cross, and on the third day, he rose again.

Well, today’s story happened before any of that even happened. That means that Jesus knew that he was going to die even before it actually occurred!!
Can you think about how you would feel if you knew you would have to give up something that you love, maybe your bike or computer. How would that make you feel? (pause) Now, think about if you knew that by giving up something you love, it would help lots of other people. Would that change how you’d feel about it? (pause)

Well, Jesus knew what was going to happen, and we know from the story that he was even a bit scared about it. But, the amazing thing is that he knew that it was for the right reasons and that there would be a lot of good things that could only happen if he did what God wanted him to. Do you know what that good news was? (pause) Well, through Jesus dying on the cross we are able to be children of God. 

Together we pray

The Diocese of Wellington has weekly prayers for church services here

Intergenerational worship

Intergenerational worship resources from Intergen Australia, written by Rev Sandy Brodine

Children's talks

  • Ministry-to-Children has a children's talk about sacrificing for God which includes an object lesson.  Probably better with slightly older children rather than littlies.
  • Keep God First: Ministry-To-Children has an object lesson about keeping God first amongst distractions, using tennis balls
The PursueGod.org website has a video here, about putting God first as a kid, presented by a young boy who carries out the lollies experiment described in the transcript below:
"So, if you really want to survive – no, if you want to win at being a kid – it takes knowing and doing the basics. If you want to survive as a kid, you’ll need to set some priorities in your life. And God should be at the top of your list. Even as kids, we can make God a priority.

Kids Basic #1 = Put God __________
We’re all busy with things like school and homework, maybe a few chores. We don’t have a whole lot of free time left. But, instead of just playing video games, sports, or hanging out with friends, we should also find time to spend with God.
Think of it this way. Imagine that your life is a bowl. You also have a lot of sweets like a huge candy bar,  Swedish fish (medium size candies), and a whole bunch of skittles (little candies). Do you think all of that candy can fit in the bowl? Well, it depends on the order. If we put the big things in first, everything will fit right! Big things first. Then the little things. What that means is we should focus on the important stuff, first, and let the other things fill in where time is left. What could be bigger than God? So how can you make God more of a priority in your life?"

Clay crosses pendants

What you need
Air hardening clay (available from The Warehouse in the craft section), beads and sequins to decorate, string/ribbon/cord to wear the pendant on, plastic plates and kebab skewers.

Preparation
Try making a few examples for the children to see. 

What to do
Give each child a small piece of clay and get them to mould it into a cross shape. Make sure they don’t make it too thin as it will be more likely to break when it is worn.
Decorate with sequins and beads by pushing then into the clay. (If they fall out when it dries, they can be glued back in.)
Using a kebab stick, make a hole in the top of the cross for the string/ribbon/ or cord.

Measure a length of the cord that can fit over your head.
Put the cross and the cord on a plastic plate for easy transporting home. (It will take a couple of days to dry completely.)
When the cross is dry, thread the cord through and tie a knot at the end. Now its ready to wear!
​
Variations: If you don’t want to use air hardening clay, you could do the same activity with salt dough and add colour to it. Just remember with salt dough that you probably shouldn’t use beads or sequins to decorate if you are going to cook it in the over!! For a recipe, see this website
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