Parents: If you’ve chosen to use an Advent Wreath with 3 purple, 1 pink and 1 white candle, in the center, light one of the purple candles to begin. 
“Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.” (Hebrews 11:1, NLT)

Sing: “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” [You can find words for this carol

online and of course, you can search YouTube for a music video.]

Can you tell us one or two things that you hope for? Do you think that it will actually happen? If so, it takes faith to believe

that it will happen. If we don’t have faith that something will occur, why wait and hope for it? You see hope and faith come together.

This is even true when we think about how Jesus will take us to heaven someday, if we’ve asked him to forgive the naughty things we have done and have made Him the boss of our lives. The Bible tells us that “this hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls” (Heb. 6:19a). But what does it mean that something is trustworthy? It means that it won’t let us down because Jesus won’t let us down.

Even when everything in our lives seems to be going wrong, we can hold onto the hope of our faith. This is when the Lord is right there. Did you know that He has promised never to leave us and forget us (Heb. 13:5b), ever? So, whether it’s in the middle of the bright day or the darkest night, He’s right there. This is our hope, our strong anchor when nothing seems to be going right.

This very hope combined with faith is the hope we celebrate at Christmas, and it strengthens us as we wait for Jesus’ return. So, let’s also say, “I will put my hope in God!” (Ps. 42: 5)

Activities:

  1. Talk about what Jesus did for us by dying on the cross and why it was so important to us that He rose from the dead. (Parents, you might want to learn about the Wordless Book in the link below). Then talk about our hope of Jesus coming back to take all His children to heaven.
  2. How can I remember that Jesus will never leave me even in the hardest times? With Mom and Dad’s help, try to come up with a saying or a picture in your mind to help you remember.
  3. Either draw a picture or choose a coloring page with Mom & Dad’s help (see the link below) to remember that hope can be our anchor.
  4. Close in prayer with thanksgiving and any thoughts you each want to communicate to Jesus. (Even ask each child to thank Jesus for at least one thing; it’s ok if that thing seem trivial to us.)
  5. To finish, sing: “Go, Tell It on the Mountain”

(By the way, you can easily make your own book from construction paper (we always used yellow instead of gold.)