God-Child

Young Jesus, by ZenArt07

Children’s Sermon: The Child Jesus

29 December 2024

Hey, guys. How’s the holiday break going? Keep in mind that we still have seven more days of Christmas, so be sure to pace yourselves.

Today we read something unique: the only story in the Bible about Jesus as a child. We have the stories of His birth, of course, but for the most part we just skip ahead to when He’s 30. People have wondered what He was up to for all of those years in between.

The truth is that nobody really understood Jesus until after He rose from the dead. That changed everything. That’s when we saw Him for who He truly was: not just a teacher, not just a nice guy, but God Himself, as one of us, come to free us from death forever.

And then we started to look back on everything that He taught us, everything that He did. And we saw that the clues had been right there all along; we just weren’t ready to believe. And we realized that it’s not like He was a man who became God. He’d been God all along. Even as a little boy. Even as a baby. That’s why we have Christmas.

So when Jesus was a kid—like you guys are, and the rest of us used to be—He was already showing us who God is, just by being who He was. Jesus as a kid taught people about God. He spoke with honesty and bravery and love. He trusted in His family and His friends. He put the work of God above all else, but as part of that He loved and listened to His parents.

He showed us that children teach us who God is just by being children: how you teach us about love and honesty and wonder; how you help us as parents be more patient and less selfish; how sometimes we get scared because we care about you and we don’t want anything bad to happen to you. And how you make our Christmases so very special.

Most of all He taught us that God loves us the way that we love you. He loves us as a Father, loves us as a Brother, loves us even better than we could ever love ourselves. And that’s Good News indeed.

God was a kid too. He chose to be a kid. And because of that we get to see God in each of you.

Thank you. Let’s pray.