Thursday, December 1, 2011

Baptism/Sin Discussion

Selena has been asking a lot of questions about baptism lately. She asks all the time when she can be baptized. While part of me feels she is getting very close to this time, I also know that there is still a lot of preparation on her part to do. She doesn’t quite understand this and reminds me daily that “We are all sinners” Romans 3:23 and “While we were sinners Christ died for us” Romans 5:8.

I asked her what she thinks happens during baptism. She just knows she would be dunked under water. To dig a little deeper we read the story about John the Baptist. We discussed what it meant for him to pave the way for Christ, and then focused on the Baptism of Jesus.

100_5772

We then took our lesson into the kitchen. I took out three eggs, one was to represent Selena, one represented me, and the third was a mystery. I asked Selena to imagine that the egg represented her. The shell was her body, the skin, or flesh. That was pretty easy for her to understand.

100_5773

100_5774

Now is where we stretched our imagination, and looked at the egg whites as being all the goodness we have in us, and the yellow as being our sin. I asked Selena what she knew about sin, and she listed off several ways that she can sin. I also broke the yoke open and mixed it around a bit with the good stuff to show her how sin can soon take over if we don’t do something about it. I asked Selena what we can do about our sin. She quickly answered with ask God for forgiveness. I then asked her what God does at that point, besides forgives us. She was a little confused, so I proceeded to separate the egg.

100_5775

Selena quickly noticed that God works on us very hard, and separates the sin from the good. I then asked her what she thinks God does with the good. She remembered one thing she had heard, “God makes us white as snow.” I told her that too takes a lot of work. God has to work on our good part, and we have to let him work on us. I then did something that totally surprised Selena, I took the egg mixture where I demonstrated how sin can begin to take over, and removed some of the good part from there leaving the sin left in the bowl. Selena thought that was neat, that God can still find good through the bad and still work on us. 

100_5776

We put the egg white or good part in the mixer and turned it on. We talked about how God works on us all the time. Selena watched wit much anticipation.

100_5777

100_5778

She quickly announced that all of God’s work makes us white as snow. This brought us around to what happens after God finally makes us white as snow. To demonstrate that once God starts his work in us, nothing can steal our salvation from us. I took the fluffy egg whites and poured water in them.

100_5779

Selena quickly announced that nothing but nothing can change the work that God does in us. She was very excited to know that God is truly working in her, and that one day she will be white as snow, just as he promises.

Pin It

6 comments:

  1. Great explanation - I have never seen it done this way!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting discussion. I've never thought of it that way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very interesting way to explain sanctification! When you started talking about John the Baptist and the egg, I thought you were headed into a trinity lesson - this was different, and fun to read!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've seen colored dye added to water to explain original sin but this one is different and interesting!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I happen to seen that nobody will be whiter than young children, but I don't believe in original sin anyway. Interesting approach to explain the concept though!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love the way this is presented and explained. I had never seen it explained this way before.

    ReplyDelete