I’m working on another fab foldable for Advent – hopefully ready for next week – but today I have some bits and bobs for Remembrance, including an all-age talk I’m preaching at my church (so if tyou’re at the same church as me, please read it with your eyes closed).
- At the Going Down of the Sun – Remembrence crafts
- We Remember – loose-parts story
- Just Over the Ridge – a poem from Look, See, Pray
- Poppies for Remembrance resources including crafts and outline service
- The Colours of a Poppy – craft, meditation and prayers
Or use the search bar to find more Remembrance resources.
All-age talk for Remembrance
Matt 25:1-13, Rev 21:1-7, (plus 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)
I’m using an oil lamp and bottle as visual aids, and giving out wicks as a take home reminder. Here are links* to the items that I’m using.
- Terracotta oil lamp and botttle they also do just the lamp in various styles – note: postage is not next day
- oil (I used sunflower cooking oil) and lighter
- Wick for handing out (and for lamp) – 5″ per person makes about 111 per pack – I’m having the scouts/guides handing them out when it says
- optional – corks for lamp and bottle – I bought a multi-size pack and trimmed down the largest to fit the lamp. Second smallest fits the bottle.
For all the parts in bold, hold up the wick with the knot at the bottom and run your finger and thumb down the wick, stopping at the knot when you say ‘NOT’.
First Part
Who has ever been to a wedding? Hands up. Keep your hand up if you had to take a bottle of oil with you. What about a torch? Anyone have the groom arrive at midnight and half the people were asleep? Has that happened at a wedding you’ve been to? No, me neither.
So what’s going on with our reading today?
This is a story that Jesus told to help us understand how to be God’s children. He says we are like bridesmaids at a wedding. They’ve all brought lamps – like this one – and some have brought spare oil.
[WICKS] To help us think about this, I have something for you. I can’t give you a lamp – health and safety and all that – but I can give you a part of a lamp. The wick.
Little bit of science for you while we’re giving them out: How does wick work? One end dips in the oil and the oil soaks up the wick by capillary action. The heat of the flame turns the oil from a liquid into a gas. The gas mixes with oxygen from the air and burns in an exothermic reaction. The means it gives out heat and light.
But why did the bridesmaids need lamps?
Bridesmaids in those days weren’t there to floof the bride’s dress and look decorative on the photos. They had a job to do, because weddings took a long time. I mean a loooooong time. The final event was the groom going to collect his bride and take everyone to their new home for a big nosh-up. It was often late at night, so you need lamps, and that was the bridesmaid’s job: to wait for the bridegroom and light the way to the feast.
In Jesus’ story, five were ready and waiting, but five had let their lamps run out. They’d given up waiting, given up hope.
OK, lovely story. What does that mean for us today?
Earlier in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus describes himself as a bridegroom, and right at the very end of the Bible, in the book of Revelation, God’s people are described as the bride. Mind blown! This story is about us! It’s a picture of Jesus, the bridegroom, coming to fetch us, the bride, to the great wedding banquet – heaven’s biggest party ever.
Let that sink in for a moment. This is Jesus’ promise: that he is with us always to the very end of the age, and when that end comes, we can be with God for ever, in heaven’s great wedding feast. Does that sound good to you? Sure sounds good to me.
And the question is, are we ready? Bride or bridesmaids, are we awake and waiting for the groom, or are we snoring in a corner, a bit of dribble coming out of the corner of our mouth?
Are we living our lives in a way that if Jesus walked in right now, we’d be happy for him to see, or have we given up waiting, given up hope? We’re probably all a mixture, ‘cos hope is hard.
What is hope? Christian hope isn’t crossing your fingers and hoping you win the lottery, or hoping you get picked for the team, or hoping there’s chips for dinner.
Or rather, it is like hoping there’s chips for dinner, but when someone promised you there would be. And it’s someone you trust. You haven’t got the chips yet. You can’t even smell them cooking. But if they promised there’s gonna be chips, there’s gonna be chips.
Jesus promised better than chips.
Jesus promised he would always be with me.
Jesus promised there’s a place for me at the great party in heaven. Same for you if you trust in him.
Jesus promised and I trust him. I will not lose hope.
We should all now have a piece of wick. Tie a knot in it, please, near one end. We can remember that Jesus promised and we will KNOT lose hope. Join in with me. Ready? Jesus promised and we will KNOT lose hope.
Keep your wick because we’ll need it later.
Second Part
In the first half, we heard about the bridesmaids whose job was to wait for the groom. Half of them were ready when he came. Half of them had given up. But Jesus promised, and we will KNOT lose hope.
Waiting and hoping can be hard. Especially when you don’t know how long it’s going to be. Just before he returned to heaven, Jesus said that he would come back, but he also said that we won’t know the day or the hour. It was bad enough waiting for the finale of Celebrity Traitors! But imagine if you had to wait weeks, years, centuries to find out who gets banished. It’s hard to keep waiting.
Jesus’ first followers had the same problem. Some of them thought Jesus meant he was coming back in like a week or so, a couple of years at most. But they waited and waited and Jesus didn’t come. (Spoiler, it’s been two thousand years so far). Some of them had even grown old and died waiting. They were losing hope. “Did Jesus really mean it?” they wondered.
So Saint Paul wrote them a letter and we have it in the Bible. It’s the letter to the church at Thessaloniki. That’s in Greece. Perhaps you have been on holiday there. Anyone?
Paul wrote to them and said not to grieve like those who have no hope. Of course they should grieve when their loved one died, but not as those who have no hope.
Hope is vital.
Hope means that what we see is not the end.
Hope means that there is something beyond the loss.
Today is Remembrance Sunday and we remember those we have lost. Later we will have an act of remembrance, when we will stand in silence and remember before God those who have given their lives so that we can live in peace and those who suffer now in war. On Remembrance Sunday, we proclaim that we will KNOT forget.
Our other Bible reading, from Revelation, looks forward to the time when Jesus comes, like the bridegroom to meet his bride. “I am making everything new!” he says. “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
At the moment we live in a world where there is death and mourning and crying and pain, and we rightly weep over them. Jesus himself wept with Martha and Mary over the death of their brother Lazarus. But we do not grieve as those who have no hope, because this world is KNOT the end.
I hope you will think about those three things when you go home.
- Jesus promised, and we will KNOT lose hope.
- We will KNOT forget.
- This world is KNOT the end.
Let’s do that one more time.
- Jesus promised, and we will KNOT lose hope.
- We will KNOT forget.
- This world is KNOT the end.
*If you follow any link to Amazon and buy something I might get a VERY small commission, but the price you pay is the same and none of your details are passed to the retailer.
