The kids at our church have been making a Bible Carousel. Each of the animals is an animal that the Bible uses to tell us about Jesus and why he came. You can read some of what we are learning below. There are also instructions to make your own Bible Carousel.
1. How is Jesus like a lion?
Genesis 49:9,10; Revelation 5:1-4
There are stories that tell us about how Jesus is like a lion in the very first book and in the very last book of the Bible. (Do you know which books those are?)
The first book of the Bible is Genesis. At the end of Genesis, Israel (who used to be called Jacob) called his sons to his bed. He had twelve of them. He was dying, and he wanted to give blessings and prophecies to his sons. A prophecy tells us about things that haven’t happened yet, or about invisible things. Israel wanted to tell his sons about their futures. He prophesied about his three oldest sons, and then he came to Judah, who was the fourth-born. He said: “Judah is a lion’s whelp!” (A “whelp” is another word for “cub.”) Then he described Judah crouching like a lion. This might seem strange, but what Israel said next is even stranger. He said:
The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
Nor a lawgiver from between his feet,
Until Shiloh comes;
And to Him shall be the obedience of the people.
Why do you think Israel would tell his son that he was the cub of a lion? It wasn’t because Judah liked to hunt for delicious plains animals! It is because of the next part of the prophecy, about the scepter. A scepter is what a king uses to reign, and the lion is the king of beasts. A lion is bold and strong, which are good qualities for a king. Israel was telling Judah that someday in the future, a bold, strong king–a king like a lion–would come from his family. One day, all people will obey the king who is Judah’s great, great, great, great (many times great) grandchild.
The last book of the Bible is Revelation, and the man who wrote Revelation was a prophet. The Holy Spirit gave him a lot of special knowledge about heavenly things that we normally can’t see. In one of the visions of heaven that the Holy Spirit gave him, he saw a scroll. A scroll is like a book. Instead of having many pages, it has one very, very long page that gets rolled up from both ends. The prophet who wrote Revelation saw a very long scroll, with everything that has ever happened written inside. It had the story of Adam and Eve, and of Israel and Judah, and it had your story, too. It had the color of your hair and eyes, and what you ate for breakfast this morning, and who your parents are, and everything that happened to you today. And it had everything that is going to happen. But the scroll was rolled up tight, and locked and sealed with seven seals, and nobody was strong enough or bold enough to open the seals and read it. So the prophet was crying. Why do you think the prophet would cry when no one could read the scroll?
When I asked the kids at church that question, one of them said: “because he wants to know the end of the story written in the scroll.” That is a great answer. If nobody is strong enough to open the scroll, we can’t ever know how the world’s story ends or whether it’s a happy ending.
While the prophet was crying, someone said: “Don’t cry. Look! The lion, who overcame everything in the world, is strong enough to open the scroll! The lion from the tribe of Judah!” Remember the king like a lion, who was going to be Judah’s great, great, great, great, great (many times great) grandchild? Do you know whose great, great, great, great, great, great (many times great) grandchild Jesus was? (Can you guess?)
Jesus is the lion from the tribe of Judah! Judah was one of Jesus’ ancestors. And Jesus was stronger than death, and stronger than the devil, and he was very bold. He’s the king whom all people will obey, and he is the only one strong enough to unlock the scroll and tell us how the world’s story ends.
How is Jesus like a lion?
Because he is the king, and he is bold and strong.
2. How is Jesus like a Lamb?
Exodus 12:3-8; Revelation 5:6
To understand more about how Jesus is like a lamb, we can think about a story from the second book of the Bible and then finish our story from Revelation.
Exodus is the second book of the Bible, and it tells us about how Israel’s children had lots and lots of children of their own, and those children had lots of children, until Israel’s family grew to be a huge nation. But they were slaves of another nation, Egypt. And Egypt did not want to let the enslaved children of Israel go free. So God sent ten plagues on the Egyptians.
The last plague was the worst. Afterwards, the ruler of the Egyptians said the children of Israel could leave. Immediately. Because, for the last plague, God sent an angel of death through the whole land. The angel would enter any home without a special mark on the doorpost, and the firstborn son in that home would die. But any home with a special mark on the doorpost was safe, whether an Egyptian or an Israelite family was inside.
Do you know what the special mark was? If you don’t already know, it isn’t easy to guess. It was the blood of a lamb. You can read about it in Exodus 12. The lamb was supposed to be without any blemishes or imperfections. When the angel of death saw the lamb’s blood on the doorpost, he would not enter that home. Everyone in the home was safe. No one would die because the lamb had already died instead.
All of this happened in the night, and the next day the children of Israel walked out of Egypt free. Then the ruler of Egypt changed his mind and went after them, and God fought for the children of Israel. You can read more about that in Exodus 14. But now we need to finish the story about the locked-up scroll.
When the prophet heard someone tell him to stop crying because the lion of the tribe of Judah was strong enough to unlock the seven seals, he looked around for a lion. But there was no lion. Instead, in the middle of the heavenly throne, with all the heavenly beings gathered around, there stood an animal that was definitely not a lion. It was a lamb! And the lamb looked like it had once been slain but was now alive again. (“Slain” is another word for “killed.”)
The lion and the lamb were really the same person: Jesus. Jesus is the king, bold and strong like a lion, and Jesus died like the lamb in the story in Exodus. His blood was marked on the cross, which is like the giant doorpost of the world. Now all the people whose stories are written in the scroll can be safe and free.
This doesn’t mean our bodies will never die. But it does mean that death is not our king, and we are not death’s slaves. Jesus is our King, and he already beat death. Our bodies will rise again, and death can only bring us closer to Jesus. We don’t have to be afraid.
How is Jesus like a lamb?
Because he died so that we could be safe and free.
3. How is Jesus like a scapegoat?
Leviticus 16:20-22
Leviticus is the third book in the Bible, right after Genesis and Exodus. And it tells us about the scapegoat.
Aaron, God’s priest, was told to take two goats. One of them was supposed to be “slain” like the lamb. Aaron would offer it as a sacrifice to God. But the other goat would be kept alive. And that live goat is the scapegoat.
Aaron was supposed to lay both of his hands on the head of the scapegoat and confess all the sins of the children of Israel. Imagine you are an Israelite boy or girl, and that you hear Aaron confessing iniquities and transgressions and see his hands on the goat’s head. Some of the sins you hear Aaron confess are things like disobeying your dad and mom, hitting your brothers and sisters. They are your transgressions.
God was trying to give the children of Israel a picture story of what he does with our sins. Listening and looking, the Israelite boys and girls would have seen the picture story: how the sins of their father and mother, aunts and uncles, and all their own sins were transferred away. In the picture story, the sins were being transferred to the head of the scapegoat. When Aaron was finished confessing their sins and drew back his hands, all the people’s sins would be laid on the scapegoat.
But where did the goat carry all their sins? What if the goat had carried the sins nearby, around the Israelites’ dwellings, to wherever the boys and girls liked to play? Would it seem like their sins had vanished? It might seem like the sins were always there, reminding everyone how guilty they were.
But God gave instructions so that the scapegoat would never show up on a playground, or in the middle of dinner, or during family devotions. After Aaron laid everyone’s sins on the head of the goat, someone was supposed to lead that scapegoat far out into the uninhabited desert, so far that the goat would never find its way back. Then the goat would be set free. The last memory the Israelite boys and girls would have of the scapegoat was of it vanishing off into the desert. And that was the best part of the picture story. God wanted even the boys and girls to see how their sins could be carried so far away that they could never be found again.
It’s strange to think that Jesus is at all like a goat. But John the Baptist said that Jesus “takes away the sin of the world.” He did this by being slain like the lamb in Exodus, or the other goat who got sacrificed in Leviticus. But he also did this like the live goat who carried everyone’s sins into the desert and disappeared.
When God carries our sins so far away that even he does not remember them anymore, we call it forgiveness.
How is Jesus like a scapegoat?
Because he carried away the sins of the world.
4. How is Jesus like a mother hen?
Matthew 23:37
The book of Matthew is not the first book in the whole Bible, but it is the first book in the New Testament. It tells us how Jesus was born, and some of what happened when he was a baby and a young man, and after he grew up. It tells us many things Jesus said. And one of the things Jesus said is that he is like a mother hen:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
Jesus loved animals and watched them. He knew that if there is a hawk or a fox or a snake, or some other dangerous animal lurking around a mother hen and her chicks, the mother will spread her wings. And the baby chicks will run under them. The mother’s wings are a good hiding place. A mother hen will let a hawk or the fox or the snake attack her, but she will keep her children safe.
When Jesus says “Jerusalem,” he means the city where God’s temple had been built. Everyone in Israel came to Jerusalem to worship and offer sacrifices in the temple. Jesus wanted to draw all those worshippers to himself, to shelter them with his own body. He saw them in danger from their sins and from the devil. He stretched out his arms to bless people and to heal them. And on the cross, he stretched out his arms to welcome the whole world. But even though so many people came to the temple in Jerusalem, they were not ready to run to God in their hearts.
Jesus stretches out his arms and calls us to come for shelter, like the mother hen. But do we turn away from our sin and run to him for shelter? Jesus was heartbroken, because often we do not. We don’t understand how dangerous sin is, or how loving Jesus is, and how good it is to be near someone who loves us so much. But we can always turn in our hearts, wherever we are, and run to Jesus. He is always ready to love us and shelter us.
How is Jesus like a mother hen?
Because he shelters us with his body.
Make a Bible Carousel
You can find instructions to make a carousel on the internet here:
https://www.artistshelpingchildren.org/kidscraftsactivitiesblog/2013/09/how-to-
make-wind-up-moving-cardboard-carousels-or-merry-go-rounds/
or tinyurl.com/carouseltutorial
(Or you could scan the attached QR code with a smartphone, and the instructions
will open.)
Coloring pages for the Bible animals are printed on pp. 22-23. Photocopy them onto cardstock or thick watercolor paper, and color or paint both sides of each animal. I used oil pastel crayons to do this (oil pastels are shiny and fun to blend).
Then, cut out both sides of each animal, including the parts that say “BASE” and “FOLD.” Glue the inner sides of each animal together, except for areas that say “FOLD.” These get folded outwards and glued right onto the carousel so that the animals stand up. I used a glue stick for this.
Modifications:
• I modified my carousel by making a top just like the base. Then I used striped straws for poles (just cut the straws to just the right size and hot glue them between the top and the base: you will probably need an adult to use hot glue).
NOTE: If you are making the carousel with straw poles, cut only the shape of each animal without the “BASE” and “FOLD” areas, and glue both sides of each animal together around a straw.
• You can also use a longer, thin craft dowel for the center if you want to give the carousel more height. Just make sure it fits into the holes of your spool.
• I made my carousel base and top fancier by reinforcing them with an extra layer of cardboard, spacing the layers with little wood blocks. I also glued painted strips of paper around the sides and trimmed the edges with scalloped craft scissors.
• You can do other modifications too, like stringing beads around the top or wrapping the shiny side of tin foil around the center column. I attached my beads with mini clothespins to the carousel top and painted everything that wasn’t already shiny or colorful.
• What are your ideas for modifications?
If you make the carousel, we would love to see! Send us pictures! (email: editor@rcus.org)
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