In our last Sunday School lesson Jesus Jesus met with Zacchaeus and told him “Get out of that tree.” Today Jesus has a different message for a man at a pool.
Jesus heals the man at the pool lesson
Like you see in that picture up there his first question is if he wants to be healed. Which seems like an odd question, who wouldn’t want to be healed. But Jesus never asks something without a reason. There are many people who are sick who don’t want to be healed. They enjoy the attention from their disease or they’ve become used to being sick and wouldn’t know how to live if they were better. So it forced the man to look at himself, did he really want to be healed?
Looking at myself, do I always want to be healed? I know what it takes to get in better shape, but I enjoy my lazy hobbies that all require sitting. Exercise means sweating and being uncomfortable. There are many other examples in my life, so are you willing to be healed?
At the bottom, I’ve linked to a great analysis of this story which taught me a lot, and I’m trying very hard not to just restate his points So, I’ll give you one last thing to think about.
Jesus’ warning to the man. Jesus sees the man later and says (Ticia paraphrase), “Look at you all better, now sin no more, or something worse might happen.” There are a lot of theories why Jesus said this (if you’re curious I’d be glad to answer in the comments, but it’s a long answer and off-topic), but it all comes down to something Paul said in Romans
I think this is what Jesus is getting at, sanctification, he’s been justified (“you’re all better“) now he needs to work on sanctification. That is a lifelong process.
Jesus heals the man at the pool activities
Not too surprisingly my kids had fun with this activity, even Princess who is usually not a fan of race games, it probably helped she won most times.
It’s fairly simple, but I included a video so you can see the game in action. Basically, you’re sick and want to get to the pool you believe will heal you, and are trying to pull yourself over.
As you’ve probably guess I can be long-winded, and I have a tendency to impart random info as it interests me like at the end of the video.
After the craft, we spent some time making a mat our poor sick man might have rested on and then decorated after Jesus healed him.
I grabbed a scrap of fabric from my stash and our fabric markers (affiliate link, I like these because they don’t dry out very quickly, AND they have nice colors) and we set to decorating. Superman finished quickly because I forgot to iron the fabric to Freezer Paper (it stabilizes the fabric and makes it easier to color), and he took about 90 pictures. Most of which I deleted, but he did take most of the pictures in this collage, and the pictures of me sharing my craft. Though I like Princess’ take on the craft best.
So I chose hers to spotlight because really it turned out rather good, if rather busy…..
All in all a fun lesson. Next week we finally learn about Lazarus and his sisters.
Jesus heals the man at the pool resources
- Jesus heals the man at the pool lesson and storybook [click here to print the storybook]
- Jesus heals the man at the pool object lesson
- Jesus heals the man at the pool activities
- Jesus heals the man at the pool sermon (referenced above)
- What’s in the Bible
Fabulous! Keep ’em coming 🙂
Will do 🙂
Such an interesting point about someone not necessarily wanting to be healed. It’s often true that everyone around a sick person might be wanting for them to heal but not necessarily the person himself/herself.
It’s a sad case, but I’ve seen it once or twice where their identity is so wrapped up in their sickness they can’t figure out how to be well.
So interesting – Ticia you are so skilled at this!
Thank you.
Healing is really complicated. I can say from personal experience that it is hard to swap from a “seriously ill” to a “healthy” identity, even when you want to.
It really is. I’ve watched my friend Tara move from seriously ill to healthy and it’s been a big transition, and there’s some things I think she still struggles with at times.
how and why are we ironing the fabric to the freezer paper , is that a permanent application and what kind of fabric , and thank you for some fun interesting lessons
You iron the freezer paper to the fabric to stabilize it while you are drawing on it. When the kids are done drawing they can peel the freezer paper off and it becomes a blanket.
As to the how, if you turn your iron on without steam (so either a lower temperature or if your iron has the option turn off the steam setting), you put the shiny side of the freezer paper down on the fabric, and then you just iron over the paper for a few seconds. This slightly melts the wax that is on that side of the freezer paper and allows kids to color over the paper more easily.
thanks for linking to the sermon – great read!
It really was interesting.