Aim:

To show that Jesus loves and cares for everyone.

Bible base:

Luke 4:38-40. Jesus heals many people.

You will need:

• Dressing-up clothes for each character – you may be able to borrow some suitable biblical-style clothes from a local church, or use material draped and tied at the waist. You will need to dress Jesus, Peter, his wife, his mother-in-law, and other ill people who came to the house.
• You may also want some pictures of houses in Jesus’ day.
• A roll of lining paper

Preparation

• Prepare the ‘street on a roll’ if you are using it and draw or find some pictures of appropriate houses. See How to Cheat at Visual Aids, published by Scripture Union, for some ideas.
• Work out how you will re-tell the story.

Presentation

Introduction

1. If this is to be the first of a series of stories, show pictures and talk a little about what the houses were like and how they were different from those in which we live.
2. Ask the children who would help them if they were ill. That would usually be the same for people in Bible times, but not on the day of this story, because this was the Sabbath. The Sabbath was the Jews’ special day of rest, when nobody did any work.

Story

1. Ask the children to listen carefully as you read the story from the Bible because afterwards some of them will help to tell it again. Read the story from a modern translation of the Bible, such as the Good News Bible or Contemporary English Version.
2. Ask how they think the different people would have felt, and what they might have said.
3. Choose children to dress up for the different parts; then re-tell the story of the sick house in your own words (or ask the children playing parts to say words if they are able to).

Include these things:

Jesus was interested in everyone who came to Peter’s house and he had time for all those who came to be made better.

And he made them better too, even though he wasn’t a doctor!

People must have wondered who this special man was.

Application

Still today, Jesus loves and cares for people who are ill and for their family and friends who are worried about them.

We can ask Jesus to help people who are ill and pray for those who look after them.

Ask which people today help ill people to get better.

Prayer

If appropriate, ask the children to think of anyone they know who is ill. During a short prayer that you say, asking God to help them to get better, have a moment of silence when each child can say quietly in their head the name of that person.

Say a prayer to thank God for people who help us when we are ill. If the school has a nurse, mention him/her by name.

Song suggestion

Jesus’ hands were kind hands, 134, Junior Praise