We’ve just had the pleasure of watching the Key Stage 1 nativity (which was fantastic!) and so we read the story of the birth of Jesus from the Bible according to Luke. We took particular interest in Luke’s inclusion of shepherds in the story. Why were shepherds chosen to be the first to see the son of God? Why not local kings or governors? Why not the wealthy members of local cities? We discussed how lonely it must be for shepherds to work alone with their flock on the outskirts of town. We also discussed how people might have looked down on shepherds at the time. After establishing that we are all God’s children and equal in the eyes of God, then why shouldn’t the shepherds be chosen?
We looked also at the story of Jesus’s birth according to Matthew who tells us about the three wise men following the star from the East with gifts of myrrh, frankinsense and gold. We talked about how it must have felt to know that you have the privilege of being one of the first people ever to see the son of God and how that must have felt. What must it be like to receive the word of God in a dream? What must the wise men have been thinking when they realised that Herod had ulterior motives sending them to Bethlehem?
The children’s task was in pairs to role play an interview between an interviewer and one of the shepherds and then again between the interviewer and one of the wise men. We had to think carefully about the questions we ask the shepherd and the wise man to ensure that we avoid questions which require one word answers. In the role of shepherd and wise man we wanted to get across what a privilege and honour it must have been to be chosen by God. Many of us got to perform our questions and answers in front of the class and we used each other’s ideas to help write an interview script in our RE books.
