Jesus is the new and better Joseph

Intro: Who have we seen so far that is like Jesus but not as good? We’ve seen Jesus as the one who brings life, the one who rescues and the one who is the obedient sacrifice in our place. Today we’re going to look at someone who has a lot of simularities with Jesus throughout his whole life.

Games: These are some fun games that can work as a recap of parts of Joseph’s story, or of course to set them up.

1. Bulldog
   The children run from one side of the room to the other without getting caught by the person in the middle, if they get caught they become a catcher in the next round. Children can must run when you say a colour and clothing item the children are wearing i.e. yellow socks, red hat, green gloves, technicolour dreamcoat!

2. Barn filling
   Fill a big pan with uncooked rice and put it at one end of the room. At the other end put some empty drinks bottles (they will all need to be the same size, we used 2 litre ones). In teams the kids must get rice from the  pan into their bottle, (using either a cup or just their hands) whoever has the most rice in their bottle at the end of the time limit wins. It’s a good idea to put the bottles on trays and play this game on a sweepable floor.

Talk: The four sketches below can help you to explain how Joseph’s life mirrors some of the points of Jesus’ life. You can, of course, tell the story in any way that suits you. There are 4 key points where the story of Joseph mirrors that of Jesus and you can mark them on a helpful chart like this as you explain their lives to the children. Here’s one way you could tell the story.

Drama:
These four sketches will help you to tell Joseph’s story.
The Beloved Son - Covers Joseph’s life at home, Jacob’s favouritism and a very pretty coat
The Suffering Servant - Joseph is sold to Potiphar and Mrs Potiphar
The Innocent Punished - In which Joseph is interviewed and proclaimed his innocence.
The Right Hand Man - The Egyptian’s celebrate Joseph’s rise to Pharaoh’s right hand man