Hunger Games - Jesus Was Our Tribute Series

Audience

Junior High/ Middle School, High School, Young Adult

Topics

Sacrifice, Redemption

Key Scripture

2 Corinthians 5:21

The Point

Jesus was our Katniss

Materials

Youtube video, Dodgeballs

Components

Message

Preparation

Download Hunger Games trailer from youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9a5V9ODuY

Download Fan Video from youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS4I_1y0OJM

(I use www.zamzar.com)

Ideas for the Sermon

Play your own version of The Hunger Games. Depending on the size of your group set up different districts and put them in different corners of the room. Then put dodge balls directly in the middle of the room, say “Go”, and let the blood bath begin. (Figuratively I hope)

In this message we will be looking at lessons from the hottest thing going right now, The Hunger Games. Let’s start out by watching the trailer to this awesome movie.

Show trailer

Start out by giving this synopsis of the movie in your own words.

In Suzanne Collins’ riveting tale of life in North America after its destruction, a powerful Capitol emerges as residents of its twelve outlying Districts individually struggle to survive under its bleak rule. Living under the constant reminder that the Capitol obliterated District 13 when the people incited a rebellion decades before, 16-year old Katniss Everdeen quietly carves out a path of meager survival for herself, her younger sister, Prim, and their widowed mother under the Capitol’s strict regime.

Each year, the Capitol assembles its Gamemakers to create an elaborate arena filled with deadly trigger points and calls upon one girl and one boy from each of the twelve Districts to play in its nationally televised Hunger Games. On the Day of Reaping when 24 children are selected to fight to the death, Katniss is whisked away from her daily quest for survival alongside her friend Gale, and thrust into the elaborate Capital as she is prepared for the Hunger Games.

In this world of instant gratification and superficial people, Katniss contends with her drunken, disengaged mentor, Haymitch, and wrestles with her feelings about her co-Tribute from District 12, Peeta Mellark. Growing up apart from Peeta in the same District, Katniss struggles to determine if Peeta is the boy who once showed her an act of kindness pivotal to her family’s survival, or if his actions are motivated to keep himself alive, as the Capital will allow only one Tribute to survive the Hunger Games’ treacherous arena.

In the days to come, Katniss must fend for her survival against the natural elements and the vicious Careers, who are Tributes who’ve trained for the Hunger Games their entire lives. Katniss meets a young Tribute whose likeness to Prim tears at her heartstrings and she continues to process what Peeta’s motives could be as the end draws near. Should she kill these two or be killed? If Katniss wins, her family will be handsomely taken care of and her District will receive the additional food it so desperately needs to survive.

Deep inside the Hunger Games, readers are treated to the witty, young mind of Katniss Everdeen, a survival-savvy girl who yearns to trust in a world that has shown her nothing of the sort.

End synopsis

But the pivotal part of this movie comes when the selection of the tributes occur. Katniss’ sister Prim is selected to the Hunger Games. It is very obvious that Prim would not last one second. With her motivation being to save the life of her little sister, even if it means risking her own; Katniss volunteers to become the tribute thus taking the place of her sister Prim.

Watch this fan video to get a taste of what that was like.

Show Fan Video

Illustration:

Eugene Nida of the American Bible Society told about the translators' search for a word of phrase in a West African language to translate "redemption" or "salvation." Finally, they came upon a fitting image...

In that people's past, tribes would fight each other, take prisoners, and march them to a city on the coast where they were to be sold to the slave traders. If a relative or friend among the slaves were recognized, he could be bought for a price. The redeemed slave would then have the iron collar removed from his neck. In the tribe's native language, the process was described as "taking his head out" in order to set him free.

In the Bible of that language, then, "redemption" would come to be translated as "taking his head out"—a fitting image for the last-minute rescue which Christ has made by buying our freedom at a price.

This is what Katniss did. She took Prim’s head out. And this picture of redemption is found all throughout the Bible, in fact, it is the main theme of the Bible. And it no place is it more obvious than in 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Verse: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”