Children's Sermon for Baptism of Our Lord

Yesterday, I knew what I wanted to say in my children's sermon.  We had had a baptism on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and for the children's sermon that day, I told the children that in about 6 weeks, we'd see Jesus get baptized and amazing things would happen.  

Yesterday we talked about the amazing thing, the skies opening up and a voice proclaiming love for Jesus as he got baptized.  We talked about how that didn't happen when we had the baby baptism back in November.  Or did it?

Well, no, the skies didn't open over our church.  If that had happened, we'd still be talking about it.  Like with Jesus--we're still talking about it.  And yet, God proclaims that same love for us, that love that Jesus heard.

I talked about Martin Luther and his idea of how we can remember our baptism whenever we wash our hands or wash our faces, whenever we're in contact with water.  I taught them what "Baptismo sum" means.

I ended with what I think is most important, that they'll hear many voices throughout their lives, and hopefully, some of those voices will tell you how wonderful you are and how much you are loved.  But there are lots of voices out there, even religious voices, who might tell you how God doesn't love you, at least not until you do certain things.

I told them that throughout their lives, if they hear a voice that tells them that they're worthless or that God doesn't love them, then that's not God's voice.  God will always proclaim love for us, and that's one way we can know that we're hearing guidance from God.

I feel fortunate in that I'm fairly sure that these children come from loving homes with parents and grandparents who won't object to my theology of God's deep love for us all.  I have heard of parents who use the idea of a punishing God to control children--those parents would not have liked my children's sermon.

After the service, as I changed out of my robe in the sacristy, I got positive feedback about both my sermon for the children and my sermon for the grown ups--both had the same message about God's love for us, about how humans are consumed with the idea of sin and improving ourselves, but God might not be.  We talked about the current time period we're living in, how hard it is to ignore the messages constantly bombarding us, messages that tell us how awful we are.  And those who are close to the worlds/lives of children know that they are not O.K.

I know that a children's sermon can't fix that--but hopefully week after week of positive messages about God will help us all withstand the poison beamed at us from other sources.