Year C. 2nd Term. Lesson 4. Parable series - The Bridesmaids and the Feast

 Scripture: for teacher background:  Luke 14:15-24 and Matthew 25:1-13

Making contact:

Talk about and show wedding pictures. You could have a wedding picture of each of the teachers on a chart, if this is appropriate and the children must guess who they are.

Or:

You could talk about what kind of parties the children like and what they enjoy eating and playing at a party.

Or:

Play this game with two torches. Have 2 identical torches. One must have a good battery in and the other one a flat battery. Show the children the two torches and how only one torch works. 

Tell them to become sleepy and close their eyes. When you say, “The bridegroom is coming!” they must jump up and stand behind one torch. Move the torches around so that no one knows which one works.

If you don’t have identical torches, put them in paper bags so that the children can’t tell them apart.

 Exploration and Application

Today’s parables are all about parties – a feast and a wedding.

In those days the bride and her bridesmaids would get ready and then wait at their village for the bridegroom and his groomsmen to arrive. 

They never knew exactly when this would be and they needed to be ready at all times. They had lamps for the nighttime, with spare oil. 

In the parable Jesus told, five of the bridesmaids had spare oil and five of them didn’t. It was getting late and the bridesmaids had got tired and fallen asleep. 

At midnight the bridegroom arrived and they leaped up to welcome him and his friends. But there was a problem.

 Five of the girls suddenly began asking everyone for spare oil because they were running out. The other girls needed their oil so they told them to go and find some other oil. 

When the five foolish bridesmaids got back, the door was shut tight and they couldn’t get in.

This is a sad parable. Actually in some way it has already happened and will happen again.

 Jesus is talking about Himself as the bridegroom and the people are the bridesmaids. When He came the first time, the Jewish people really weren’t ready for Him. 

When He comes again are we going to be ready for Him? 

This parable is a warning parable. We need to be full of His love and His Holy Spirit, like the oil, and have extra. 

We need to do things that will be like having extra oil – read our Bibles and pray, having our sins washed away, being obedient by living lives as He wants us to. 

In that way, we, the Church, the bride will be ready when He comes. We don’t know when that could be.

In the parable about the feast, Jesus tells how a man was going to give a wonderful feast. He invited all his guests and on the day when everything was ready he sent his servant out to say the time had come and the feast was ready. 

This is the usual way invites were done . The people all began giving excuses. “I can’t come, I have bought a field and must go and see to it.” 

Another man said, “I have bought oxen. I want to go and try them in my field.” 

Another one said,” Please accept my apologies – I have just got married.”

The servant told the master and he was furious. He told him to go out onto the streets of the town and bring back the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame. When they were all in there was still room for more, so he told the servant to go to the country and invite everyone so that the party would be full.

None of the invited guests came.

Long ago God invited Israel to be His special people, and when Jesus came as their Messiah, they weren’t interested. 

But it is not just about the Jews but it could be about us. Jesus died on the cross for us and has made the way to Heaven open to us. 

All we have to do is accept His invitation and yes please. If we say we are too busy, we might find that we are shut out of Heaven one day. 

They were too busy with money, possessions and relationships – a wife is important, and running a home but not more important than Jesus!

 People who love their cars and families and TV’s more that Jesus will find themselves outside heaven’s feast one day.

This is also a sad parable in a way. God does so much for us and gets everything ready and then some of us can’t be bothered or are so busy with other things that we ignore the invitation. 

Remember everybody is invited! The only ones who don’t come are the ones who won’t come!

Challenge to Mission

Let  us be like that servant and go and invite people to come to Sunday school where they can meet Jesus. 

We should also warn them that one-day people who are too busy now will be sorry because they will be shut out.

Consolidation

The worksheet has a list of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, lamps and spare oil. The children can fill in the missing number. 5 wise bridesmaids, with 5 lamps and 5 bottles of spare oil. 5 foolish bridesmaids, 5 lamps and 0 bottles of oil.

Memory Verse

"Jesus said, “Be on your guard, then, because you do not know the day or the hour.”

Matthew 25:13