Children’s Sermon

Mark 2:23 – 3:6

The Right Time

Lois Parker Edstrom

This past spring, in a large city, a mother duck built a nest and laid ten eggs in that nest. The problem was that she built the nest on a wide cement ledge of an office building, ten feet off the ground. (Show children how high ten feet is.)

The office workers looked down from the windows above and saw that all the eggs had hatched. They wondered how the mother duck would get the babies down from the ledge so they could go to the river which was about three blocks away. Ducks must have water within two days after they are hatched.

While the office workers watched, the mother duck flew down to the sidewalk and started quacking. One little duck wobbled to the edge of the ledge and jumped off. It did not know how to fly so it crashed to the sidewalk. It was not seriously hurt, but was stunned and couldn’t get up right away.

One of the office workers knew something had to be done so he raced down the stairs to the sidewalk just as the second baby duck was about to jump. He caught the little duck in his hands and put it on the sidewalk near the mother. He caught all of the other eight ducks as they jumped off the ledge.

He then got a cardboard box, loaded the little ducks inside and carried them down the sidewalk and through traffic to the river, the mother duck following behind.

What a story – the man was a duck hero! Now, do you think it mattered which day of the week this happened? No, the man had compassion for the ducks and wanted to help.

Jesus teaches us to be compassionate – to care about others. When the Pharisees, who paid great attention to the laws, criticized others for doing good works on the Sabbath (Sunday, God’s day) Jesus said to them, when a man with a withered arm came to him to be healed, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do harm?” (3:4).

They did not answer him. Jesus had compassion for the man and healed him, even though it was the Sabbath, because it was the right thing to do.

Scripture quotations from the World English Bible

Copyright 2009, Richard Niell Donovan