Scripture: for teacher background: Luke 15:11-32

Making contact:

Ask a volunteer to demonstrate what they do when they see their mommy or daddy or grandparents for the first time after a week or even a longer time. Hopefully they run and hug them!

If you want to tie this lesson in with Valentine's Day then discuss how people make their loved one feel special - cards, flowers, hearts etc.

You can also give the background to Valentine's Day.

St. Valentine was imprisoned beheaded & buried on 14 Feb 269 AD for helping persecuted Christians & marrying Christian couples! While in prison he prayed for his jailer’s daughter & her blindness was healed. On the day of his execution he left her a note signed, ‘Your Valentine.’

Exploration:

Tell this story either using puppets – made from wooden spoons or paper packets, or get some children to act it out.

Today’s parable is probably the most famous parable. It explains so well just how much God loves us. It is God’s Valentine story.

It tells of a father who had 2 sons. The younger one wanted to leave home and asked for his share of the inheritance. He wanted to get away from authority and live just as he pleased.

His father let him go. He went far away and wasted all his money in reckless living. Then there was a famine and his money was finished.

The only thing he could do was to work on a farm looking after pigs. Now this story was probably about a Jewish boy and you can imagine what the people listening to the story felt about that!

Pigs! No one gave him anything to eat and he wished he could fill his tummy with the bean pods that the pigs were eating.

He came to his senses and realized that at least at home he would get food. He decided to ask his dad if he could just be a farm worker and tell him that he realized he had made a big mistake and therefore couldn’t be his son anymore.

So he started the journey home.

Back there his father had been watching out for him everyday and when he was still a long way off he saw him coming and he ran to meet him.

He gave the speech he had practiced but his dad didn’t even let him finish.

He called the servants to bring the best robe and a ring and sandals and to prepare a feast. He tells them to kill the prize calf and cook it. He said his son was as good as dead and is alive again – lost but now found.

Meantime there was another brother – a good boy, working hard at home.

When he heard all the news he asked the servants what was going on and they told him that his brother had returned and there was going to be a big party.

He was furious. His father came outside and begged him to come in. He told him he had worked so hard and never disobeyed and had never had even a little party, but now his brother, who was terrible, was getting all the attention.

The father said that everything was his anyway, but that his brother was as good as dead and is alive again.

Application

This parable really shows us how God loves us. He is like that father of the 2 boys.

He is very sad when we turn our backs on Him, like the younger brother did.

The older brother was at home but not close to his dad and really rather miserable and self righteous-so near yet so far- rather like some religious people are who aren’t happy when God loves a real stinking sinner.

If we rebel and go off and waste our lives and things, God actually lets us go.

He doesn’t chase after us, but waits, because this isn’t the same kind of “lost ness” as last week’s stories. This kind needs waiting for because it is rebellion. When we realize how stupid we are and we come running back to God, He forgives us and makes us His family, not just servants. The ring is a symbol of that family belonging.

God’s love is extravagant like the father – a feast for when we return- the same as the party the angels had in last week’s story. I hope you can feel how much God loves you, even if you don’t deserve it.

(Note: The prize calf that was killed was for the meal at the party. It was not a sacrifice. We believe that Jesus was our sacrifice and that now we don’t need to sacrifice animals like they did in the Old Testament. Now an animal being cooked is just a braai!)

Challenge to Mission

Let’s be careful that we aren’t like the older brother and look down on “lost” people who discover that God loves them.

Let’s join in the happiness.

Maybe you need to show that kind of love to someone who you thought didn’t deserve God’s love.

We can also use this story to tell other people and help them realize how much they are loved.

You may have a friend who is rebelling or who did and now is sitting feeling in a dirty place like a pigsty because what they have done is too bad to be forgiven.

Tell them that their heavenly Father is waiting for them to confess like the prodigal did and show them the way home to God and forgiveness.

God is brooding over them and longing for them to return, but won’t force His way to them.

Consolidation

There is a work sheet. The children must number the pictures to put them in the correct order to tell the story.

There is an extra activity – making of a pig. See pattern and instructions. Try and get pink paper. If this is done at the beginning of the lesson or the week before, the little pigs can be used in the play when the story is acted out.

Memory Verse

“We had to celebrate and be happy because your brother was dead but now is alive; he was lost, but now has been found.” Luke 15:32