Bible Story Lessons

Jesus and his disciples were sitting together eating the Passover supper when He said to them, "One of you will betray Me."  All the disciples were very sad and each one asked, "Is it I, Lord?"  When Judas Iscariot asked, Jesus replied, "Yes, it is you", for Judas was planning to betray Jesus, and had already been given thirty pieces of silver to do so.

After dinner that evening, Jesus went into a garden to pray with His disciples, because He knew that He was soon going to die.  While He was praying, Judas came up to Him leading a crowd of men.   Judas kissed Jesus so they would know whom to arrest.

And what of Jesus' disciples?  Although they loved Jesus, all those disciples were scared and ran away in fear!  Would you have run away? (Let the children respond).

Jesus was taken before the high priests and was accused of calling Himself the Son of God.  When morning came, all the chief priests and elders voted to put Jesus to death, and took him before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor.  But although Pontius Pilate questioned Him, Jesus would not defend Himself.

Pilate wanted to set Jesus free, but he eventually gave in to the crowd's wishes and sentenced Jesus to be crucified.  The soldiers led Jesus away and mocked Him as the "King of the Jews", and pressed a crown of thorns on His head.

Later as they were going to a place called Golgotha, the soldiers came upon a man named Simon of Cyrene, and made him carry Jesus' cross.  And when they came to the place, the Roman Soldiers nailed Jesus to a wooden cross, and then gambled for His clothes as they kept watch.

It was a funny day, because it became dark as night-time even though it was early afternoon!  After many hours of suffering on the cross, Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have You left me?" and then died.  At that moment, an earthquake shook the earth and the soldiers exclaimed, "Truly, this was the Son of God!"

That evening, Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple of Jesus, received permission from Pontius Pilate to take Jesus' body down from the cross.  Joseph wrapped the body of Jesus in clean linen and laid it in his own new tomb, which had been cut out of the rock.  He then rolled a great stone over the door of the tomb and went home.

The next day the chief priests went with some Roman soldiers to seal the stone covering the entrance to the tomb.  They also left a guard by the tomb , so that no one could remove Jesus' body.  .

On the third day, Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Joseph, went to see the tomb.  And there was another great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord had rolled back the stone.  The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here, for He has risen as He said.   Come and see where He lay, and then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead.  He is going before you to Galilee and there you will see Him."

With joy the two women ran quickly to tell the disciples.  As they were going, Jesus met them on the way.  They knelt at His feet and worshipped Him, before going to where the other disciples were gathered.

Later, Jesus told the disciples to go out and make disciples (followers), and teach them to obey all that He had commanded them.  Jesus said to them, "I am with you always" and then rose up into Heaven and disappeared from their sight.

We cannot see Jesus, but if you love Him, He is with you wherever you go.  Jesus is the Son of God and loves us all very dearly, and died to take the punishment for all the wrong things we have done.

If you ask Him, He will forgive you, and come and live in your heart as your Saviour and Best Friend.  And this means that you will go to Heaven when you die, and live with Jesus for ever and ever!

God bless.