I
had planned to continue the study of John 9, but one of the young men who grew
up at Seaside and now lives in Houston came back and asked if he could share a
testimony. It turned into quite a sermon,
so I let it stand. When the Holy Spirit
changes something, who am I to force my plans?
And the Holy Spirit was obviously with us. Lots of great feedback. Everyone was really touched by Nick’s changed
life.
The
plan was for the children’s sermon to introduce the story in John 9 about Jesus
healing a man blind from birth. This
took place before Nick began, so here’s a look at what happened. I took a deep breath when we announced it and
seven children came to sit on the front pew – all boys. I asked a few lead-in questions:
“What
does it mean to be blind?” That was an
easy one. “It means you can’t see
anything.” They looked at me like I was
crazy for insulting them with such an easy question. So I tried again."What do you think it would be like to be blind?” That brought a bit more out of them. “You couldn’t see what you were eating.” “You couldn’t watch TV.”
A few of them were obviously thinking hard about that one, so I moved on to,
“If you knew someone was blind and just got his sight, what would you tell him he needs to go see first?” And there it was. The light bulb turned on and the creative answers started to flow. The very first answer that came out was my favorite. The youngest of the batch of boys offered, “A penguin.” Now that was not what I expected. Not in a million years. The second answer was in the same category, I suppose, “A cheetah.” So we had the exotic animal lovers in the bunch. Another added “his family,” and finally the oldest boy decided I must be wanting a Sunday School answer, so he tried, “A cross.” From there we moved to some participation. I had a mystery box draped in a very dark cloth. One at a time, I put three different things inside and had a boy reach in and describe what he was feeling. The rule was that he couldn’t guess what he thought it was. All he could do was describe it to me. They did a really good job, all things considered. The first hidden item was described as “Soft. Has four legs, but the back legs aren’t there. Oh, and it has something like tusks. I finally called time and asked what he thought it was. His guess was a sabre-toothed tiger. Fortunately, he was wrong. It was a stuffed animal version of the Taco Bell dog. The next guy actually figured out that his object was one of those allegedly eternal light bulbs with the curly glass. It had just burned out. The final one was a bit more difficult, but the description was great. “It feels like a kind of long stick or straw with what feels like the top of a cupcake on one end.” Not a bad description of one of those pinwheel things that spins when you blow into it. I was impressed with all of the descriptions. Even when one of the adults yelled out, “What color does it feel like?” The youngster didn’t miss a beat and replied, “It feels white.”
That
activity made it easy to continue with the point:
You
did a good job figuring out what was in the box. But you had an advantage. You have seen some of those things before, so
you kind of knew what they might look like. But what would happen if you had been blind ever since you were born, if you have never seen anything? That would make it even harder. That’s what happens in the story today. A man who was born blind meets Jesus and Jesus heals him. He can see for the first time ever! That had to be a really exciting day for him.
John
9:3-5 says, “’Neither this man nor his
parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the work of God might
be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who
sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the
world.’”
Jesus,
thank you that we can see. Help us learn
to recognize when what we see is: you at work!
Amen.
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