This free Bible lesson is based on John 6:51-58, when Jesus shares with His instructs His followers to eat His flesh and drink His blood. It is designed for children’s church or Sunday School. Please modify as best fits your ministry. If your church follows the Revised Common Lectionary, this teaching plan would correspond to Year B – 12th Sunday after Pentecost, Gospel Reading – John 6:51-58.
Lesson – Life in the Blood
Does anyone know what two things we eat and drink during communion?
We have bread, which represents the body of Jesus, and we have wine/juice which represents the blood of Jesus.
Jesus Himself actually served the very first communion. He was having Passover dinner with His followers,
And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” – Luke 22:19-20
Now this might sound normal to us, since we hear it every time communion is served, but for the people at that Passover dinner, it sounded crazy!
And I think, if I was in that room and hearing that for the first time, I would think it sounded crazy too.
But Jesus didn’t want His followers to think it was crazy. Or gross, or weird, or scary. Jesus wanted His followers to think about life.
You heard me right, life. Even though communion is about Jesus dying, it is also about Him living, inside of us.
Way back in the Old Testament God gave Moses some rules. God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, which we hear about all the time, but He also gave Moses lots of other rules to follow, about what to wear, what to eat, how far to walk, and anything else you can think of.
In the middle of all of those rules there is one that tells us about the life in communion.
This happened WAY before Jesus was ever born, but God had it planned out and knew what this one rule would mean to all of us. Do you want to hear it?
Ok, here it is. God told Moses that no one could eat or drink blood.
That might sound like Jesus was disobeying God in a huge way, but Jesus was doing exactly what He needed to do. You see, the reason they couldn’t eat or drink blood was because “the life of the body is in its blood” (Leviticus 17:11).
God didn’t want us going around with cows and pigs and chickens living inside of us. And I must say, I don’t want cows inside me either!
But there is one and only one life God wants living inside of us. Anyone know who’s life that is? Jesus!
With Jesus living inside us we have eternal life. And He gave us that eternal life when He died on the cross and shed His blood for our sins.
Taking communion won’t save you. And drinking the wine/juice won’t make Jesus live inside of you. For that to happen, you have to pray and ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins, and to come live within you. The communion just helps us to understand what that really means.
When we take communion we eat bread and drink wine/juice so we can remember the sacrifices Jesus made for us. And so we can remember just what those sacrifices mean. They mean life! Jesus living inside of us and giving us eternal life in heaven!
Activity A – Life in the Blood– Bible Verse Challenge
Supplies – Bibles
Verse – John 6:53
Pass out Bibles to students. Bibles should be closed and sitting on the table face up in front of each child. When you say go, have the kids look up this week’s Bible verse. As each child finds the verse, have them stick one finger on the verse and quietly raise their other hand. The first one to find the verse gets to read it to the rest of the class.
Help younger kids and new kids find the verse by following these steps.
Look in the Table of Contents for the book you are looking for. Make an effort to show them if it is found in the Old Testament or New Testament to help them in the future. Then open the Bible to the page number listed in the Table of Contents.
Show them the large numbers in the text, known as the chapters. Flip through pages until you find the large chapter number you are looking for.
Then scan through the text with them pointing out the smaller verse numbers until the correct number is found.
Activity B – Life in the Blood – Jesus Lives in Me!
Supplies – clear plastic cups, construction paper, nickels or quarters, pencils, scissors, markers, glue sticks, purple tissue paper
Give each child some purple construction paper, coin, pencil, and scissors. Have them trace their coin 12 times with the pencil, then cut out their circles.
Glue the purple circles on the cup in a triangle pattern, then add a brown stem and green leaf.
On a small piece of construction paper have kids write “Jesus Lives in Me!”, then glue to the opposite side of the cup.
To finish it off, place a small tuft of purple construction paper in the bottom of the cup.
Closing Prayer – Life in the Blood
Ask for a volunteer to pray for the class before leaving, and encourage them to thank God sacrificing His life so that we may have life in Him.
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