Homily, God Loves Messiness: A Children’s Sermon
Christmas Eve Family Service, Year C, 2021
Good Shepherd Episcopal Church
Tequesta, FL
The Rev. Derek M Larson, TSSF
Today’s Lectionary Readings:
Merry Christmas! It’s wonderful to be here with you.
I have a question for you. Does anyone have a good imagination here tonight? I need some people with some good imaginations. Where are our kids? If you’re a kid can you show me where you are?
This evening we need some imagination to help us with our children’s message.
1. Okay, so first, I want you to imagine a castle (or maybe a palace or mansion). Close your eyes for just a few seconds and imagine.
Using your five senses, what do you sense?
What do you see in the castle?
What do you hear in the castle?
What do you smell in the castle?
What do you taste in the castle?
What do you feel/ touch in the castle?
2. Okay now we’re going to imagine something else, so erase that image. Kind of shake your heads like this.
Now I want you to imagine a barn. With a bunch of animals and everything.
Using your five senses, tell me about the farm or the petting zoo. Describe it to me.
What do you see in the barn?
What do you hear in the barn?
What do you smell in the barn?
What do you taste in the barn?
What do you feel/ touch in the barn?
Okay good. So we have two images. One is a beautiful, clean, shiny, castle. And one is a smelly, crowded, loud barn.
Now out of these two, where do you think a king belongs?
(The castle).
Ah, yes, but today we celebrate Christmas. Today we celebrate the greatest king of all who came to us as a baby not in a big, beautiful castle, but in a small, smelly, messy manger. Isn’t that amazing?!
See, God likes messy things. God likes to come into messy things and make them beautiful.
How many of you have messy rooms?
How many of you have messy houses?
How many of you have messy lives?
You don’t have it all put together.
You don’t always make straight A’s.
Sometimes you make mistakes.
Sometimes you do things you know you’re not supposed to do.
Sometimes our lives are a little messy aren’t they?
But at Christmas we remember a little baby who came into the messiness of this world to make it beautiful.
So if your room is a little bit messy, if your house is a little bit messy, if your lives are a little bit messy just remember that Jesus came into this world just for you. Amen.
Thoughts on Faith 