A story on the theme of Matthew 2.1-12

Theme: Like the Wise Men, we must learn to be "wise" and "savvy" in reading the signs before us that point us to Jesus.

Change the names and genders and parental configurations as works best for your context.

Sarah was like most kids. She liked candy. (Aside to kids in circle: Of course, you don’t like candy, but Sarah did. ) Her favorite candy was peppermint.  She never got much peppermint at Halloween, but at Christmas, there was lots of peppermint - particularly peppermint candy canes. When Sarah ate peppermint she smiled. It was a great day!

That’s why she was so excited one day in December when she sat down at her chair in school and looked up at the teacher’s desk and saw a big jar of candy canes -- peppermint candy canes!

She knew that they were going to be a reward for kids who did something in class and it looked like there were so many that some kids would get more than one.

Her teacher gave them the assignment to work on and she began to work on it, reading her book and writing on her paper. She worked as fast as she could, but also as well as she could. When she did things well at school, she smiled. It was a great day!

She finished a little early and as she was waiting, the girl next to her whispered that as they went by the jar -- if the teacher wasn’t looking -- they should slip an extra candy cane out of the jar.  Wouldn’t that make Sarah smile twice and it would be a great, great day!

But then Sarah remembered the lesson she had in Sunday school class last Sunday. It was about stealing things that didn’t belong to you. The Bible said it was wrong. And when she thought of times she had taken one of her sister’s special stickers, she remembered how bad she felt. She had frowned and it had been a bad day. 

As she walked toward the front and saw her friend slip out an extra candy cane, she thought about doing it, but remembered that it was wrong. When she got to the jar on her teachers desk, she only took one candy cane. And she smiled. And it was still a great day.