Children's Sermon Advent 4 - Year B

After waiting in the cafeteria line at lunch Hannah found a seat across from Lydia, the girl who lived down the street from her.

Lydia fumbled through her backpack then pulled out a chocolate bar.

“A girl after my own heart,” said Hannah, “eating dessert first.”

“This isn’t my dessert,” replied Lydia, “This is my lunch.”

“What do you mean it’s your lunch? Where’s your sandwich?”

Lydia looked away and took another bite of her chocolate bar.

Hannah opened her brown bag lunch. There was a ham sandwich, a juice-box, a banana, and a granola bar. She looked in her bag then looked at Lydia.

“Here, have this,” said Hannah, handing Lydia her sandwich, juice-box, and granola bar. She kept the banana.

Lydia didn’t say anything.

“Don’t you want them?” Hannah asked.

Lydia still didn’t say anything.

“Well, here they are if you want the,” said Hannah getting up from the table and leaving the sandwich, juice-box, and granola bar on the table.

A minute later, Hannah stuck her head back in the cafeteria and watched as Lydia took huge bites out the sandwich Hannah left on the table.

That night when she came home from school, Hannah opened the fridge and pulled out some leftover ham, lettuce and tomatoes, mustard, mayo, and bread. And started making herself a triple-decker super-duper, skyscraper sandwich.

As she was assembling the second layer, her mom came into the kitchen.

“Wow! That’s a big sandwich for a growing girl,” said her mom.

“I’m hungry,” replied Hannah.

“Apparently,” replied her mom. “I guess we have to pack you more food for lunch.”

“I gave my lunch to Lydia.”

“Who’s Lydia? And why’d you give away your lunch?” asked her mom.

“Lydia’s a girl in my class. She only had a chocolate bar for lunch so I gave her mine.”

“Boy, that’s generous,” said her mom. “That’s sounds a lot like the story of Mary, Jesus’ mother.”

“How?” asked Hannah.

“God gave her a wonderful gift. The angel Gabriel told her that she would be Jesus’ mother.”

“But what did Mary do to get that kind of a gift?” asked Hannah

“Mary didn’t do anything to deserve it,” replied her mom. “All she did was open her arms to receive the gift of the Christ child. But what I think is even more amazing is that we all can be like Mary. We all carry Christ’s Spirit within us, and when we show love like Jesus did, and you did with that girl at school, Jesus is born again in the world.”

“H’uh?” asked Hannah.

“It’s just another way of saying that we all can share God’s love with everyone who needs it. Where love is, so is Jesus.”

Then they said a prayer like this as we do now: Dear God, please love the world through us. Amen.