The following is part 1 of the Christmas Story from my Christmas curriculum for children’s church called Christmas Chaos.
This story includes the angel’s Announcement to Mary and how that event must have completely rocked her world. We all know the beautiful story about how God worked everything together to weave the perfect Christmas story, but for the people involved, it must have certainly seemed like it was all quite a bit chaotic.
So here is a fun opening activity to play with your children’s church kids and then a lesson script to inspire your telling of this amazing story.
Christmas Story Opening Activity
It’s that time of the year again! I’m sure you’ve noticed that the stores are selling Christmas decorations again— normally they put them out in October right after putting away the Halloween stuff, skipping right over Thanksgiving! Well, let’s see who’s already started watching Christmas movies and who is a bit rusty. Can you guess which movie these lines are from? (With younger kids, mention a few hints about characters in the movie to get them thinking.)
“What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?” (The Grinch)
“If you’re really Santa Claus, you can get it for me. And if you can’t, you’re only a nice man with a white beard like my mother says.” (Miracle on 34th Street)
“Bah-humbug!” (A Christmas Carol)
“I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It’s not bad at all really. Maybe it just needs a little love.” (A Charlie Brown Christmas)
“You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!” (A Christmas Story)
“The best way to spread Christmas Cheer, is singing loud for all to hear.” (Elf)
“Seeing isn’t believing; believing is seeing.” (The Santa Clause)
Christmas Story Lesson Script – part 1 (The Angel’s Announcement)
Those movies (referring to the Opening Activity) all have to do with make-believe stories, but they sure got it right in “The Santa Clause” when they said that seeing isn’t believing. The BEST and GREATEST Christmas Story had to do with a bunch of crazy things that you definitely wouldn’t believe even if you saw them happen. That’s because God did some really IMPOSSIBLE things.
The Christmas Story I’m talking about has nothing to do with presents, lights, and trees— it’s all about the day Jesus was born. God knew that it was time for Jesus to come to earth, so He had to make it happen. Now, there was a young woman named Mary who wasn’t married yet, but she was engaged to a nice man called Joseph. The plans were made, a date was set— and back in Bible times the bride probably didn’t wear white, but whatever she wore, I’m sure Mary was excited about her wedding day.
One day while Mary was daydreaming about being married and what she might name her kids, someone threw a monkey wrench into all her plans!
Well, it was more like an angel wrench, because an angel suddenly appeared to her out of nowhere.
The angel said, “Hello Mary, you are very blessed, and God is with you.”
Of course, Mary was completely shocked and afraid, and didn’t understand what was going on.
So the angel said, “Hey, don’t be afraid. God sees something really special in you. Now, you are going to have a son, and you must call Him Jesus, he will be called the Son of God and will reign forever one day.”
Wait, wait, wait. Stop right there. That was certainly NOT in Mary’s plans. Like the rhyme goes—first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in a baby carriage— everyone knows that. Besides, a baby right now would be a big NO-NO. If a girl who wasn’t married had a baby, everyone would start yappity-yapping about her and no one would EVER want to marry her. Mary really found all of this news from the angel hard to believe— so she asked the obvious question, “How am I going to have a baby since I’m not married yet and I’m still a virgin?”
The angel replied, “God’s Holy Spirit is going to make it happen. Your baby isn’t going to have a human father. His Father is God. Nothing is impossible with God.
It was all very shocking, but Mary accepted the change of plans because she realized that God’s plan was going to be WAY BIGGER and COOLER than her own.
Now keep in mind, Mary doesn’t know she’s going to be in one of the most famous Bible stories of all time one day. All she knows is…an angel gave her some straaaange news.
So she said, “Well, I’m God’s servant, so I’m willing to do whatever He wants.” I’m sure she was worried about what might happen when people would start to see her belly grow— they might think she had been unfaithful to Joseph.
Sure enough, Mary started to look different, and Joseph noticed. And it wasn’t because she had done something new with her hair. Nope, she was definitely pregnant. Here he was, all set and ready to get married and start a family, and he saw that Mary was already one step ahead of the game! Immediately he thought, “Well I certainly can’t marry her anymore— but since I’m such a nice guy, I won’t embarrass her in public or anything like that. I’ll just break up with her in secret.” Yeah right— break ups always end up turning into big messes that everyone finds out about. Just think of “Brangelina” or Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez.
Luckily the break-up never happened, because God sent an angel to speak to Joseph. The angel told him he could still marry Mary and have a merry married life. Ok, well maybe he didn’t use those exact words. But he said that the child in Mary’s womb was the Son of God who would save the entire world from his sins. I’m sure it still sounded crazy to Joseph, but he accepted the privilege of helping Mary raise Jesus and married her. He decided not to care about what people would say, and he obeyed God.
All these strange happenings were only the beginning of what God was doing to bring us the very best Christmas present of all time: Jesus. Even though the way it all happened was weird, God was in control the whole time, and each detail was part of His plan. He had made plans to send Jesus a very long time ago, when Adam and Eve first sinned in the garden. God knew that in order to save mankind from the awful punishment for sin, He had to send His precious, only Son to earth to die for our sins.
That is what Christmas is all about— the day that God gave his greatest gift to us— JESUS. Will you celebrate Jesus’ birth this Christmas and give Him thanks for this gift, or will December 25th just be an excuse to ask for that toy you’ve been eyeing in the store? Will you spread “Christmas cheer” at school by telling others about Jesus this year, or will you pretend that you’re not a Christian and that Christmas to you is just another holiday? The choice is yours.
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