The Sunday School Answer Is Still the Right Answer



Have you heard that joke?

One Sunday a Sunday School teacher asked her class, "What is small, has a bushy tale, climbs trees, and eats nuts?"

A bright student raised her hand and answered, "It sounds an awful lot like a squirrel, but this is Sunday School so the answer must be 'Jesus'."

It has become a thing lately to beat up on Sunday School and the answers we learn there.  The good old, tried and true lessons of the Sunday School teacher are downgraded, laughed at, even mocked.

People don't want the Sunday School answers.  They want what they perceive to be the deeper, more satisfying reasons.  And above all they want to be able to struggle and doubt without judgment.

Those who struggle and doubt are seen as "real", while those who stick to what they learned in Sunday School are looked down upon as "simple" or even "fake".

But there is nothing simple or fake about holding on to that good, old fashioned Sunday School answer: Jesus.  He is the answer.

To all of our doubts, all of our questions, all of our anger and protest, Jesus Christ crucified and risen is God's final response.

The doubters may struggle in all their angst and confusion.  But they will never find a better answer than Jesus, the Bible, forgiveness, baptism, communion, the Lord's Prayer, or the Ten Commandments.

These things are simple because they are foundational.  And it is to the bedrock foundation that we return in the days of struggle and angst.

  Then [Jesus] said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”  

 The Sunday School answers are not trite, they are true.  They are not fake, but rather firm.  And we would all greatly benefit from rehearsing them with our children and running to them when we doubt. 

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