The Bible is So Cool!
A blog by Rebecca DeLucia, Next Generation Pastor
“The bible is so cool!”
I wish I could have captured the look on the child’s face as they said this on a Sunday morning. We had just finished our November series called “Unsung Heroes” which covered the book of Ruth. If you aren’t familiar with the Central Kids curriculum we use, called GROW, it has a big idea each week.
For the November series the four big ideas were: God gives us companions, God gives us opportunities, God gives us boldness, and lastly, God gives us hope.
As we learned the story told throughout the book of Ruth, we discussed the bonds between Ruth and Naomi, the opportunity Boaz gave to Ruth and how we too can respond in kindness when we help others. After discussing the complicated relationship between Boaz and Naomi, and thus Ruth, in a way kids could understand, we finally got to the story of Ruth marrying Boaz and him setting aside his family line to honor Naomi’s.
It was this final Sunday as we finished making a family tree when one of the kids said, “The Bible is so cool!”
Our lineage started with Ruth and Boaz whose son Obed had a son named Jesse who had a son named David…all the way to Jesus.
And Jesus is indeed our hope.
This past Sunday we lit the HOPE candle on the Advent Wreath, sometimes called the prophecy or promise candle, this candle reminds us that, “the Bible is so cool!” God fulfills promises etched throughout the Old Testament in the birth of Jesus.
14‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.15 “‘In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. 16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord Our Righteous Savior.’”
Jeremiah 33
This past Sunday as we began our Christmas series in Central Kids, we read these verses and I could hear, “the Bible is SO cool” reverberating in my mind as we talked about how Jesus is the savior that God promised. Mary, along with so many others in Israel, clung to the hope of God’s promises and let that hope change the way they lived their lives and for Mary, it impacted the way she responded to the impossible situation before her.
We too ought to let the promises of God not only fill us with hope but influence the way we live lives filled with grace, forgiveness, peace, love, joy, renewal and even justice.