Teaching kids -- Inspiring teachers
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Teaching kids -- Inspiring teachers |
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THE Rooster Gets To Tell His Story by Patricia Meyers Cock a doodle do! Hello to you! Welcome to my class today, boys and girls. You are in for a very special story from THE Rooster. I’ll bet you have never met THE Rooster before, have you? Of course you have not because I have just gotten to your town for the very first time! I am on tour this year from Jerusalem. Do you know where Jerusalem is? Of course you do! It is in Israel, right? Excellent! I am here to tell you what really happened that day long, long ago when that nice prophet was crucified. Do you know that nice man? (Let kids yell out answer.) Yes, that was His name – Jesus. Excellent again. So many people are confused about a part
of the story having to do with a man named Peter and THE Rooster. I thought
perhaps I should drop by and straighten things out. There have been many
confusions. Anyway, THE Rooster is the particular rooster that is in charge of all the roosters and chickens in a particular town. I have been THE Rooster for 10 years and I just handed over the job to another THE Rooster so I could travel and tell our story. We are all – the THE Roosters – are all descendants from one special THE Rooster that was in change of all the roosters and chickens and hens on the day that a certain prophet was ordered to be killed. Do you know what prophet I am talking about? Yes, Jesus. That is excellent a third time! I will need someone to keep track of the excellence in this classroom! I really don’t have that many toes and my wings are useless for counting. Anyway, that special THE Rooster was given a large responsibility from the man Jesus. Do you know what responsibility means? (Call on one child to give a definition.) Excellent again. Yes, he had a very important job to do and Jesus was counting on him. I have found out that humans think roosters just crow in the morning like this: “Cock-a-doodle-do!” But that is absolutely not true. We crow all the time. Especially in Jerusalem, we crow about all sorts of things. I love those cartoons that show the rooster only crowing at sun up. How funny that is to all of us. We love to crow. We will let off a hearty “cock-a-doodle-do” at a moment’s notice. For any good reason. Or if there is a problem. There are actually people in Jerusalem that don’t like us because of our beautiful “Cock-a-doodle-dos”. I don’t understand that at all. Have you ever heard a more beautiful “Cock-a-doodle-do” as that? And I'm not even the most beautiful “Cock-a-doodle-do-er” that there is. Some of my friends can “Cock-a-doodle-do” like you have never heard before. Let’s hear you all “Cock-a-doodle-do” are you ready? Ok, GO! How beautiful. You can all be honorary roosters today. Anyway, what happened on that horrible night when Jesus tried to tell his disciples about his upcoming death is that Peter promised to stick with him no matter what – even to the death. Jesus looked at him with all the kindness that was always in His eyes and told Peter that he would deny Him three times before THE Rooster crowed. Oh my goodness gracious. What a job that Jesus gave to my ancestor. He had to race around that big city of Jerusalem and inform all the roosters that there would be no crowing until he crowed twice. And that was final! He told them how important it was – they were obeying the order of the Son of God! Never was a rooster given that kind of responsibility. The stories that have been handed down about what our ancestor, THE Rooster, went through to keep things quiet until the dreadful even had occurred are legendary. Stories about him having to tie up a couple beaks, I think he used fishing line on one rooster. Stories about his locking a pen full of roosters and chickens up with extra feed so they would eat too much and fall asleep. Stories about promises he made to keep some of them quiet – you know promises about him handling their chores for a day or two – stuff like that. Oh, my he was busy. He raced around Jerusalem faster than any THE Rooster had had to race in the history of mankind – or since then for that matter. And he did it. He got around the city, shut everyone up quickly and returned to hang around Peter. He thought he would be hard because of all of the disciples. He thought maybe they would be hanging together real tight-like because of the horrible events that took place. Jesus went to the Garden to pray and some men came and arrested him. That guy, Peter, even tried to kill a guy, but he only cut off his ear. Jesus fixed it and told him to knock it off – that wasn’t how things were going to be. Well, when he was arrested every single disciple ran off. Every one of them. Every single one. No one stayed. But Peter couldn’t really leave. THE Rooster saw it in his eyes. He ran a little off and then followed Jesus from a bit of distance. It sure made it easy for THE Rooster to follow him. THE Rooster told us that he was a little nervous about all the guys with the swords, so he was glad Peter followed from a little ways back. Anyway, the evening went as Jesus planned. Three different times people came up and recognized Peter as one of the disciples (which he was) and three times he denied it! One time he even said some bad words. That was not good. And just as instructed, THE Rooster crowed twice after the third denial. And all the other roosters in Jerusalem were quiet until then. Oh, Peter was one sad man when he heard THE Rooster crow. The way our ancestor shared that story would make your heart stand still. Just imagine the saddest eyes possible. Those were Peter’s eyes. Imagine being able to actually see a broken heart through the windows of the eyes. My ancestor said that is exactly what he saw. I think Peter was terrible sorry. Some people around town said it was weird, the town was strangely quiet without our beautiful music. But since that time roosters have been crowing non-stop. We hope that our crowing will remind people to stick with Jesus no matter what. I guess the rest of the events that weekend went as planned, too. That nice man Jesus was tried and crucified – which was weird. The weather was creepy, the people were shook up, and then he was dead. Dead I tell you – he was NOT faking it. But three days later, THE Rooster was just hanging around in a graveyard kind of curious, you know And WOW – a big angel shoved that stone away and out came Jesus, looking kind of different. It was cool. And was Peter ever excited. THE Rooster said he knew that boy wouldn’t be denying Jesus anymore. He was certain of that. If you don’t believe that my ancestor was THE Rooster, than you’ll have to read about it yourself in Matthew 26:34, Mark 14:30, Luke 22:34 or John 14:28. And that is my story – the rest is up to you. Will you hang around like Peter or run off like the rest of them? Will you deny him or be bold enough to stand up for him NO MATTER WHAT? It is not just Peter’s story – it is all of our story. What will we do? What will YOU do?
The end.
P.S. This story is based on information from some dear friends of mine who have been missionaries to Jericho for years. They contend that roosters crow around the clock in both Palestine and Israel. |
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