Baptism of Jesus
Do you remember your baptism? Most of you were probably baptized as babies and so you likely wouldn’t remember - but most of you have seen baptisms here in our church. What did you notice about the baptism? What happened? What did people say?
In our Bible story today, John holds people under the water in the river for a moment. We don’t do that in our church but we do use water. The minister sprinkles water on the baby’s head. We use warm water here for babies. Why do you think that is? What do you think would happen if the water was really cold?
Water is an important symbol in the church. It is a symbol of washing clean and starting fresh. It is also a symbol for life, because nothing can live without water.
Sometimes when people feel sleepy, they splash their faces with cold water to wake up. Have you ever done that? Or have you ever jumped into really cold water on a hot day? Does that wake you up? That’s kind of what John the Baptist was doing when he dunked the people in the cold river. He was telling them to wake up and pay attention because Jesus was coming.
Think of some of the ways we use water every day… drinking, cleaning, making plants grow, relaxing in a warm bath… Can you think of some others?
In our country, where water is plentiful, we sometimes take it for granted. In the next few days, take notice of the times you use water. How would your life be different without water?
Look again at each thing on your list. Can you think of a way that each use of water might be a symbol for living in the way God wants us to?
Sometimes we take our church family for granted too. How would your life be different without church?
Response Activity Ideas
Remembering Your Baptism
Ask your family to tell you about your baptism. Maybe they can find pictures taken from that day, or show you the certificate or other mementos you received. Who was there to watch or participate in your baptism? How did you react to getting wet? How was your baptism different and similar to Jesus’ baptism?
If you haven’t been baptized, you could talk about that decision with your family.
Use a doll or action figure and a small pitcher to do pretend play baptism in a sink or basin of water!
Water Pictionary or Charades
There are a LOT of stories in the Bible where water is important. How many can you think of?
Did you get these ones?
Noah’s Ark (Genesis 6-9), Moses and the Red Sea (Exodus 14), Jonah and the Big Fish (Jonah), Jesus Walks on Water (Mark 6:45-56), Woman at the Well (John 4)…
If you have one, flip through an illustrated children’s bible and see if you can find more.
Now make a game out of it! Set a timer for 90 seconds, then take turns with people in your family either drawing one of the stories or acting out a story (no talking!) and see if they can guess which biblical water story you were thinking of!
Torn Paper Collage
Make a paper collage to represent Jesus’ baptism.
Materials: Jesus, John, Dove clip art; green, grey, assorted blue, and light blue paper, markers/pencil crayons
Print out the Jesus, John, and dove templates, then colour and cut them out. Use a piece of light blue paper as the background (sky). Rip some cloud shapes from white/grey paper and glue them near the top.
About a third of the way down, begin adding layers of green paper torn to look like hills. In the bottom third, change to layers of blues to make wavy water, tucking John and Jesus into the middle. Continue to the bottom of the page, using the straight edge of blue water paper along the bottom edge of the background page. Glue dove and write “You are my beloved” near the top.
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