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Lesson eleven
- pages 22/23 Jesus and the Last Supper
Aim
for the book
To engage children in a discussion relating the
Christian understanding of God to everyday life.
Learning objectives
- To know:
- some of the attributes and titles
of God in Christianity;
- that Christian prayers address
God in different ways.
- To be able to discover that
love needs work.
- To understand that:
- Christians understand one
God in many ways;
- Christians use differing
images of God in prayer;
- Christians understand God's
love as active.
Bible references
Luke 22.14-20
1 Corinthians 11.17-27
John 6.35
John 8.12
John 10.7
John 15.5
Background
Central to Christian belief is an understanding of God as Father,
Son and Holy Spirit (the Trinity). Christians find this way of
describing God helps them to refer to the wide range of their
experience. Christians also believe that God cannot be limited
by words or completely understood by humans. Nevertheless, they
believe that God is most fully revealed in the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus.
The Chinese artist, He Qi, called this picture 'The Last Supper'.
It is dominated by the figure of Jesus, with arms outstretched,
representing not only the crucifixion but also the Christian's
belief that God's love embraces all. This image is a powerful
and emotive invitation to Christians to share in the Last Supper.
In the smaller images around the main figure, the story of the
Last Supper is depicted. This is the event when Jesus ate bread
and drank wine with his friends just before his death. He commanded
his disciples to do this, when they met together, in order to
remember him. For many Christians this shared meal of bread and
wine is still the central part of their worship, as it recalls
the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. By partaking in this
meal, Christians thank God for the gift of his Son, Jesus.
Ways of using the picture
- What do you see when you first look at this picture? Explore
each area of the picture in more detail.
- Talk about meals you have shared with you family and friends.
Are there any special meals that you have shared, e.g. birthdays,
festival times, anniversaries? Explore together the preparation,
the event itself and the ways in which the special times are
remembered.
- Use these preliminary discussions as preparation for telling
the story of Jesus and the Last Supper.
Key words
- Father/Mother
- Son
- Holy Spirit
- Trinity
- Love
- Grace
- Mercy
Activity one - reading prayers
Copies of well-known prayers
- the Lord's prayer, the Grace, prayers from 'Common Worship'
or other service books
Materials to make a decorated
class prayer book
Read a familiar prayer - the
Lord's Prayer perhaps - or possibly a special school prayer.
Talk about how God is described in the prayer. Is it just
as 'God', or is it Father, Spirit, Mother ... ?
Read other prayers and make a
collection of them. There are various published collections
around. Maybe use the prayers found in 'Common Worship'. Use
the texts of the prayers to identify different understandings
of God. The Lord's Prayer as such is a 'Father' prayer and
has strong associations with Jewish monotheism. Contrast this
with 'the Grace' (from 2 Corinthians 13.13) which is about
the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Do all Christian prayers talk of the 'love' of
God? Identify other attributes or work of God such as grace or
mercy that often appear in Christian prayers. Discuss the need
for work in all of these attributes.
How easy is it for us to love?
Use examples of brothers and sisters here!
How hard is it for us to grant
mercy?
How easy is it for us to offer
forgiveness?
Encourage the children to think of these things
that Christians believe as things that God does. They require
effort, just as all of us have to work to love people, or give
mercy to them.
Having investigated some of the ways in which
Christians understand or address God, move on to pupils' composition
of their own prayers.
Make a definitive collection
of children's prayers into a prayer book. You may like to
use decorated letters and other illuminations in writing
them out. Use the prayers in school worship.
Activity two - Jesus is
Materials for poetry, art and
modelling.
Discuss ways of showing love.
Try to encourage as wide a range of ideas as possible, from
broad generalizations about giving or caring, down to goodbye
kisses and so on. Try to bring out the idea of children as
being the ultimate expression of love. The instance of single
parent families does not stand against this. The children
in such cases are most often still the creation of such love,
and, at the very least, need to feel so.
You might like to link this
activity with activity three.
Talk about why Christians believe Jesus is the
son of God, the child of God.
Talk about parents and the love
they have for children, and bring in grandparents - how important
is it that a child is like grandad, granny, aunt Sophie or
whoever?
Children are like their progenitors, just as Christians
believe Jesus was like his father. In Jesus Christians see God
having been born as a human being.
For Christians God is love and reveals this love
through Jesus and that he revealed different expressions of that
love in his teaching, ministry and life.
Talk briefly about some of the
'I am' sayings from John's gospel and how they can be understood
as loving.
- 'I am the bread of life' (John
6.35) - when we love someone, we do not let them become hungry.
- 'I am the light of the world'
(John 8.12) - when we love someone, we do not abandon them to
become lost.
- 'I am the gate for the sheep'
(John 10.7) - when we love someone, we are willing to be open
with them and to guard their secrets.
- 'I am the vine and you are the
branches' (John 15.5) - when we love someone, we will sustain
them and support them.
Do not try to draw out great
theological themes from these images - their power lies in
their simplicity.
There are many possibilities
at this point:
- Drama - take each saying as
the beginning of a short improvisation.
- Poetry - write pieces reflecting
the image: vine, shepherd, gate and so on.
- Modelling - create model tableaux
to represent each image.
- Art - create drawings, paintings or
sculptures as representations.
Gather all of the work into a
mini-festival. Watch the drama, look at the paintings and
so on.
Ask the children what these things
mean to them. Don't press meanings upon them, leave the discussion
open at the end of the session.
Activity three - our love
To ask the children in advance to
bring from home pictures of things they love
Pictures of your own - food,
activities and someone special
Drawing materials - or digital
camera
Newspaper and magazine pictures
of modern life
What do we love? Ask the children
to bring, from home, pictures of something that they love.
Do not be too specific when asking them to do this.
Look at the pictures and ask
the children to talk about them. Have some pictures of your
own which include such things as food - ice cream is good
- activities, possessions, and people. Point out the difference
between loving someone and something. What does love of someone
involve that love of something does not?
Expressing love. Activity two
identified metaphors for the work of love. This activity is
more concerned with practical expression, from our own perspective.
Create a 'Love is in...' exhibition
or display. Use drawings to illustrate ways of showing love
from simple facial expressions and other gestures to such
large-scale endeavours as Children in Need, Comic Relief
or Tear Fund. This will build up into a montage of material,
possibly with captions such as 'Love is in holding hands',
'Love is in giving', 'Love is in helping' and so on.
Other forms of work such as sculpture
or photography could equally well be used.
Collect a series of pictures
from magazines and newspapers that reflect modern life. Present
these to the children and ask them for each picture whether
this picture represents love in action or not. Even if it does not,
would they see it as love?
Divide your collection according
to the children's views.
Activity checklist
Activity one - reading prayers
Copies of well-known prayers - the
Lord's Prayer, the Grace, prayers from 'Common Worship' or other
service books
Materials to make a decorated
class prayer book
Activity two - Jesus is
Materials for poetry, art and modelling
Activity three - our love
Ask the children in advance to bring
from home pictures of things they love
Pictures of your own - food,
activities and someone special
Drawing materials - or digital
camera
Newspaper and magazine pictures
of modern life.
Web site links
For further information, look
at the links section of this site.
http://christianbest.com/xian_art.html
http://www.holidays.net/passover/
© Robin Sharples
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