Children’s Sermon

Mark 9:2-9

Can’t Believe Your Eyes

By Lois Parker Edstrom

Have you ever seen something so surprising, so beautiful, or so exciting that you could hardly believe your eyes?

Sometimes rainbows form as double rainbows that arch across the sky. The glistening colors are so dazzling that you must run to get someone to look at it with you.

Perhaps you are looking out a window on a stormy night and see lightening zip across the sky. Your mom or dad may say, “Yes, I saw that too.”

Maybe you have seen the Grand Canyon, a tall tree like a sequoia, or a skyscraper that seems to reach into the clouds. Objects that are very large make us question what we are seeing; we wonder if the object is really as big as it seems and we ask others to see what they think.

When Jesus lived on earth he took three of his disciples and went to a high mountain to be apart from the crowds of people. While he was on the mountain a great change came over him and “his clothing became glistening, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them” (9:3).

The disciples were frightened. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

“A cloud came, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, ‘This is my beloved Son. Listen to him'” (9:7).

The voice was God’s voice. What they saw was so surprising, so beautiful, so exciting that the disciples needed to hear God telling them that what they saw was true. God said, “This is my Son…listen to him!” (9:7).

That is the best advice for us today and everyday. This is Jesus. Listen to him!

Scripture quotations from the World English Bible

Copyright 2007, Richard Niell Donovan