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Children’s Sermon

John 15:9-17

Sharing God’s Unlimited Love

May 5, 2024

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Lectionary Year B

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ASK (a.k.a The On-Ramp)

Good morning!
To begin today, I'm going give a tennis ball to the person on my right.
And what I would like you to do is pass it to the next person.
Once that person gets it, then they need to pass it to the next person
Keep doing this until it makes it all the way back to me.
Ready? Set? Go! [Pass tennis ball around the circle]
Very good!
Now let's see if we can do 2 tennis balls -- one after another
Ready? Set? Go! [Pass one tennis ball, then a second while the first one is still going around]
Very good!
Now that we're well practiced, let's see if we can do 10 tennis balls in a row [say the next line quickly to avoid the observation that you don’t have enough tennis balls]
Ready? Set? Go! [Pass out the same 2 tennis balls and then start looking around as if you lost something]
Hold on! Wait! Just a minute! I think we have a problem, here.
It looks like I don't have 10 tennis balls to pass out.
Well…I guess we can't do what we were planning to do.
[Shrug] Sorry about that.

TELL (a.k.a. The Freeway)

Though disappointing, I hope my lack of planning will help us think about today's scripture story.
In it, we hear Jesus talking to his disciples about what he expects them to do after his crucifixion/resurrection/ascension.
Jesus starts by saying that he has loved the disciples the same way that God loves him (Jesus)
Jesus THEN tells the disciples to love each other as he has loved them.
In other words, God first loves Jesus and then Jesus loves the disciples and then the disciples love one another.
So this love that Jesus is talking about is a lot like our tennis balls, right?
I pass it to you, you pass it to the next person and so on.
Pretty simple, right?
But what happens if the disciples run out of love – just like I ran out of tennis balls – and don’t have any more love to pass out?

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

This is why it is important to notice where Jesus gets his love from -- because he doesn’t create it by himself.
Instead, Jesus receives love from God
This is important to remember because humans can run out of love, just like we can run out of tennis balls.
But God does not run out of love -- God always has more love to give us.
So, if we keep turning to God, like Jesus did (and taught his disciples to do), then we'll always have more love to receive and then always have love to share with each other.

And that's the good news for today. Let’s pray.

CLOSING Prayer

This is a repeat-after-me prayer.

Dear God,

Thank you for Jesus…

...who receives your love...

...and then shares it with others.

Help us to learn...

...how to do the same.

Thank you and Amen

Originally posted April 26, 2015

Updated on April 7, 2024

Written and edited by Nathanael Vissia

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Supplies: You will need two tennis balls (or any 2 similar things, like two balloons).

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