Dalton St Mary's School

This morning Sarah and I went to do the assembly at Dalton St Mary's School.  It was our first visit of the new school year and it was great to see all the children and the staff again after such a long time.  It was good to see all the new little ones as well.  Sarah started the assembly by asking about new things and went on to explain that I was going to tell a Bible story from the New Testament about a man... I started by saying what the man did that is he was a liar, a thief and a cheat who happened to work for the Romans - I did explain that the Romans ran the country where Jesus lived as they also ran our country many years ago at about the same time.  So this man was a Liar, a thief and a cheat who worked for the Romans collecting tax's - again I paused to explain that paying tax is not a bad thing to do but this man in the story took too much money.  Now one day Jesus was going to pass through the town where this man lived and Zacchaeus (that was his name) wanted to see him - well so did the rest of the town of Jericho where Zacchaeus lived but because he was a liar, a thief and a cheat worked for the Romans collecting tax's plus he was a vey short man he couldn't get his way to the front of the crowd.  Now as Jesus had come into the town through the top gate of the town he would have to go through  the bottom gate and Zacchaeus knew this.  So while the crowd all looked one way and shouted Jesu' name he went the other way and climbed up a tree and waited thinking no-one will see me in the tree.  Wrong Jesus did and asked him to come down as he wanted to go to his house for tea.  As Jesus and Zacchaeus went off the crowd started to complain why would Jesus want to go to the house for tea of someone who is a liar, a thief and a cheat that works for the Romans collecting tax's - they all followed and waited outside, some tried to look through the door, others peered through the cracks in the door. Then Jesus came out with Zacchaeus who looked at the faces in the crowd and said sorry for what he had done and he had decided to give half his wealth away and to pay back 4 times the amount he had cheated people out of.  Jesus announced to the crowd that today Zacchaeus had decided to make a new start.  Sarah then talked about ways in which we can make a new start as each day is a new day and we can put to one side all the things that have happened before and start again.  She also said that we all make mistakes at times and like in the story with Jesus we can start a fresh.  We finished off by singing So Many Ways to Praise the Lord before saying a prayer.