Matthew 16:13-20 "Peter's good confession"

Objects: A gigantic 3M Post-it Note or Butcher’s paper, 8 cards with each of the phrases below written on them, some thick texters:

 Jesus was born in a hospital

Jesus is our teacher

Jesus picked 10 disciples

Jesus likes children

Jesus died and stayed dead

Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ

Jesus is God’s Son

Jesus is our Saviour

Today I want to talk to you about confession. Already in the service we have confessed our sin and also confessed our faith. In the confession earlier in the service we said sorry to God for our sin and the pastor on behalf of God forgave us. And in the creed we confessed God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the type of confession Jesus’ disciple Peter made in the gospel reading.

Jesus asked his disciples a very important question; “Who do you say that I am?” The disciples said some say a prophet others a teacher. Lots of people in the world say today that Jesus is just a prophet or a great teacher, but he’s much more than that.

I have some cards here that ask you who Jesus is? What I want you to do is answer true or false as I read them out:
Jesus was born in a hospital.....


Let’s look at those last three questions; Jesus is the Messiah, God’s Son, the Saviour. For the first Christians it was very dangerous for them to confess, to talk about their faith. They had to bow down and worship the Roman emperor, who was a king who had to be treated as god. So what they did apparently if they wanted to signal to another person that they were Christian was draw an arc in the dirt or on the road like this:
Then if a Christian saw it they would respond by drawing an arc on the other side of it like this:
(Encourage the children to draw a fish on the butcher’s paper/post-it note too)

The fish became a symbol for the early Christians and even more than that it became a confession of their faith. The Greek word for fish is IXTHYS. Each of those letters stand for something. The I is for the Greek word for Jesus. The X is for Christ which means Messiah. The TH is for God. The Y for Son and the S for Saviour. So in that word for fish icthus is the wonderful confession that Jesus is the Christ, God’s Son and Saviour.

(If you can attach the butcher’s paper/post-it note to a wall in the sanctuary/church for everyone to see)

Let’s pray, Thank you God for people who have faithfully confessed Jesus, people like the early Christians. Help us also to confess Jesus and point people to him. Amen.

(If there are any fish depicted in your church’s furnishings or altar, lectern or pulpit paraments, Pastor’s stoles or banners ask the kids to go back to their seats and count how many fish they can see in the church)