Saturday 20 June 2020
Welcome to our fifth Messy Church at Home session. Have you been climbing any trees recently when you have been outside? Today we hear a Bible story about a little man who climbed a tree so that he could see Jesus. Watch the video to find out what happened.
Here are some activities to help us to think about this story a bit more.
Build it!
Can you build the story scenes out of lego or other building bricks/blocks? Or you could use sticks, leaves, stones or whatever you can find outside to make a tree collage and Zacchaeus’ house too?
When we hear this story we often focus on Zacchaeus climbing up the tree but the most important part happened at his house later. Meeting Jesus changed Zacchaeus’ life, he was sorry for the wrong things he had done and he wanted to start living his life for Jesus.
Penny Shove Game
Use a whiteboard if you have one or paper on a table will work too. Mark out strips from 1-9 as shown in the picture and push/flick the coins to try to land on a number strip. Depending on ability levels, here are some variations of how to play or make up your own version:
- Who can land on the highest number line when they flick their coin?
- Who is the quickest to land at least once on each of the number lines, maybe not in numerical order though or it might take forever!
- Using 3 coins each, who can get the highest score, when they add up the numbers they land on?
When Zacchaeus collected taxes (money that you need to pay to the government) from people, he took more money than he was meant to and so nobody liked him. Why do you think he did that? Can we be like that sometimes? Meeting Jesus helped him to see life differently and he gladly gave back more money than he’d taken from people, to show that his life had changed.
Story and Song Celebration Time
You can read today’s story in Luke 19 v 1-10 in the Bible or you can follow the link to it here.
Why do you think Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus for himself?
Perhaps he had heard about all the amazing things that Jesus had been doing and he wanted to see this person for himself.
How do you think he must have felt, when Jesus called up to him in the tree?
Everyone disliked Zacchaeus so much that I think he must have been very surprised to hear Jesus call out his name and ask to come to his house that day! Jesus wasn’t worried about what other people thought about Zacchaeus or what they thought of him for asking to go to Zacchaeus’ house, he knew that he needed his help. Jesus knows each one of us, just like he knew Zacchaeus and he loves each one of us too.
“Jesus smiled. ‘My friend!’ he said, ‘Today God has rescued you!’ Jesus loved Zacchaeus when nobody else did. He was Zacchaeus’ friend, even when no one else was. Because Jesus was showing people what God’s love was like – his wonderful, Never Stopping, Never Giving up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever love.” (from the Jesus Storybook Bible, Sally Lloyd-Jones)
Just like Zacchaeus, we all have the opportunity to say sorry for the things we have done wrong, to ask Jesus to be our friend and to follow him in our lives each day. Let’s finish with a song to remind us that Jesus is always there for us, the best friend we can ever know.
Remember to send in any pictures of what you have made to our Facebook page or you can email them to familyworker@outlook.com, we would love to share some on our Facebook page. Thank you for visiting Messy Church At Home.