How do our celebrations reflect the true meaning of Christmas?
Christian Concepts
God – Creation – Fall – People of God – INCARNATION – Gospel – SALVATION – Kingdom of God
The aim of this unit is to:
- give children a Biblical perspective on the nativity story.
- deepen children’s understanding of what Christians believe to be the true meaning of Christmas.
- increase pupil’s knowledge and understanding of the place of the incarnation in God’s Big Story
Christian Values
Hope Humility
Key Skills
Analyse, Interpret, Reflect, Evaluate, Synthesise
Key Questions
- Where in the Bible is the Christmas story?
- How does the nativity story/birth of Jesus fit into God’s Big Story?
- Why are the stories in Matthew and Luke similar/different?
- How do our celebrations reflect the true meaning of Christmas?
- Where do the ideas of including a donkey and a stable in the story come from?
Key Experiences
Identifying the two nativity stories and considering the purpose of the Gospel writers.
Key Vocabulary
Saviour, Messiah, Gospel, Matthew, Luke, nativity, Herod, incarnation, and salvation.
Expectations and Outcomes
To Begin With
Story
Begin by asking the children, as a class or in groups, to write out in brief a list of the key points of the nativity story. How much of the story do they remember?
Record pupil’s lists and ideas in your RE scrapbook so that you can refer to them later
Investigate
Where in the Bible is the nativity story?
Challenge the pupils to be Bible detectives and find the nativity story in the Bible.
To save time ask the whole class a few general questions before they start searching such as ‘Do you think that the Christmas story is in the Old or New Testament?’ Then find the New Testament together. ‘Do you think we will find the story at the beginning or the end of the New Testament?’
Guide them to the Gospels and then off they go.
What do they discover?
The story is only recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
Matthew 1:1- 2:23, Luke 1:5-2:40
SS Click here for the link to Sensory Stories and Widgits for this unit.
Analyse
Compare the content of the story in the Bible with the content of the lists they made earlier.
How much of the story did they remember?
What did they miss out?
How much of what they remembered is not actually in the Bible but is included in Nativity plays? E.g. Mary rode on a donkey wearing a blue dress, inn keepers saying ‘no room’ and there is no mention of a stable in the Bible.
Which points on their lists can only be found in one of the Gospels? E.g. The Magi are only in Matthew, the shepherds are only in Luke.
Update the pupil’s lists and ideas already recorded in your RE scrapbook using a different coloured pen
Apply Knowledge
Picture sort – Download this picture sort exercise Ask the pupils to sort the pictures into two piles – Matthew’s story and Luke’s story
Text Impact Connection
Explore and Discover – Lesson Content
Investigate and Evaluate
(see Resources for Teachers)
Why are the stories in Matthew and Luke similar/different?
Why do the two gospels contain different elements of the story?
The Gospel writers wrote for different audiences. (In literacy lessons pupils will have been given the task to write for different audiences e.g. newspapers, magazines, letters and holiday post cards etc. Hopefully this will help them to understand why Matthew and Luke wrote for different purposes.)
WS Click here for the link to the Why Story for this unit.
Watch these two films and then ask the children to look carefully at the lists they created in the previous lesson and ask them who they think the two different audiences were?
Matthew includes the Genealogy – Jesus’ Family Tree and the visit of the Magi and Luke includes the Magnificat – Song of Mary and the visit of the shepherds.
Do the gospel authors achieve their aims? How? What do you think?
Record individually on the Questful map for this unit.
Reflect
Matthew wrote about the events he considered to be the most important and so did Luke. What part of the story do the children consider to be the best, the most important, the most exciting etc?
Record individually on the Questful Map for this unit.
Think about God’s Big Story
(see Resources for Teachers)
How does the nativity story/birth of Jesus fit into God’s Big Story?
Record pupil’s thoughts and comments in your class RE scrapbook
Apply Knowledge
In groups ask the children to look at the words of traditional Christmas carols such as – Away in a manger, O Little Town of Bethlehem, Once in Royal David’s City, We Three Kings and Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Challenge them to highlight where reference is made to each of the two gospel stories using different coloured pens. Then discuss how the highlighted words/sentences connect to key Christian belief and God’s big story.
Record in your class RE Scrapbook
Analyse
How do the different elements of the Christmas story impact upon the way in which we celebrate Christmas? e.g. angels, stars, nativity plays, carols, Epiphany
Record in groups in your class RE scrapbook
Investigate
How do our celebrations reflect the true meaning of Christmas?
Look at artwork, Christmas cards, clothing, decorations, and children’s nativity story books.
Record in your class RE Scrapbook
Where do the ideas of including a donkey and a stable in the nativity story come from?
How does the local church celebrate Christmas? Look on their web site!
Ask the clergy to visit and explain to the children the variety of events and services that will be taking place during the seasons of Advent and Christmas and why these happen at this time.
Record in your class RE Scrapbook
Discover
A record of The Flight to Egypt is unique to the gospel of Matthew.
This aspect of the story is often missed out and therefore may be new to the children.
Introduce the story to the children using artists’ interpretations of the event.
The Flight to Egypt – Vittore Carpaccio
The Flight to Egypt – Rembrandt
Rest on the Flight to Egypt – Nicholas Mynheer
Flight to Egypt – Henry Ossawa Tanner
And other artworks from around the world using this link Global Christian Worship – ‘Flight to Egypt’ in Global Art (50+ artworks) (tumblr.com)
Retell the story using these books
Jesus was refugee by Andrew McDonough ISBN 978-1-912863-01-3
Refuge by Anne Booth and Sam Usher ISBN 978-0-85763-741-3
Ask
Why did Joseph take Mary and Jesus to Egypt?
What questions would you like to ask Joseph?
What is your reaction to Herod’s actions?
Empathy
Discuss the feelings of Mary and Joseph as they made this quick escape to a foreign land.
What emotions do you think they experienced?
Record Individually
Take this opportunity here to talk about refugees and people who have had to leave their homes because of civil unrest. Refer to news stories about refugees and the camps in Calais.
It is important that we remember that Jesus was a refugee and he had to flee for safety.
Use the book ‘Who are Refugees and Migrants’ by Michael Rosen and Annemarie Young ISBN 978-0-7502-9986-2
Discover
Luke records Gabriel’s visit to Mary ‘The Annunciation’ and the Song of Mary. ‘The Magnificat.’ Luke 1:46-55.
Listen to a choir singing the Magnificat.
Look at the words of the Magnificat in several different translations of the Bible e.g. NIV, King James, The Message.
Luke 1:46-55 NIV,KJV,MSG – Mary’s Song – And Mary said: “My – Bible Gateway
Ask and Reflect
What do these words teach us about Mary, Jesus and God?
What do these words reveal about Christian beliefs about Mary, Jesus and God?
Record Individually
Create
Interpret the Magnificat with illustrations from Jesus’ life.
Record Individually
Dive Deeper
Analyse and Interpret
Ask the children to identify the specific content of the story that helps to explain and answer questions about what Christians believe about Jesus.
Where is the evidence for the incarnation and that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah?
Record individually
Discuss and investigate
Discuss and investigate the differing views of the position given to Mary across the denominations of the church. Ask the clergy to help you with this. There are many pieces of artwork, paintings and sculptures of Mary that will enrich these discussions.
Views range from highly revering and venerating Mary to the more simple perspective of seeing her as Jesus’ mum.
Resources for Teachers
The intended audience of each Gospel writer
Matthew wrote for the Jews and focussed upon showing how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy. Jesus was the long awaited, promised Messiah talked about by the Old Testament Prophets. (The Messiah would a descendant of Jesse – Isaiah 11:1 and a descendant of David – Jeremiah 23:5-6 and born in Bethlehem – Micah 5:2) By recording the visit of the Magi Matthew also emphasises that the Messiah is not only for the Jews, he is for the Gentiles as well.
For additional lesson content see Understanding Christianity Unit 2B.4 Resource Sheets 1A, 1B and 2.
Luke wrote primarily for the Gentiles and by including the song of Mary and the visit of the shepherds he focusses upon showing that Jesus came to save everyone. Jesus was/is the Saviour of the world.
Gods Big Story
The relationship between God and his people was broken (Fall). Throughout the Old Testament the Prophets (People of God) tried to show the people the way to rebuild that relationship and promised that God would one day send the Messiah to rescue them. Jesus, the son of God was that Messiah. He was born as a human baby (incarnation) preached God’s word (Gospel) died on a cross and through the resurrection rescued all God’s children (salvation) therefore fulfilling the prophesies and repairing the relationship between God and his people.