Being funny, then being real

Sometimes, when I teach a Bible Study lesson I try to interject a little bit of humor. In today's study, which was the story of Jesus healing a blind man and what happens afterward, I likened some of the events to what seemed to me the modern day equivilent of things that the people in the group would share some understanding of. The thing Jesus did was heal a man born blind. Now, nobody in the history of EVER up until that moment had ever done this thing, and when you look at this from the perspective of the guy that got his sight back, the story of what happens to him gets to be a little bit, well, much.... The Lord heals this man, and he's obviously got to be completely blown away by what happens. He's discovering all these new things. He can see what his parents look like, he can see what EVERYTHING looks like, and then the people around him are upset because Jesus did this wonderful thing to him on the Sabbath. So he winds up in front of the Pharisees for a line of questioning and when they don't believe his story, they call for his mother and father to be brought before himm. When they get there, they're scared to death to lose everything by being put out of the synagouge, so they kind of throw their son under the bus and tell the Pharisees that their son is of age, and to "ask him" This guy I imagine, from the way the rest of the story unfolds in our next lesson, is pretty thrilled about being healed. This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible because next week, the guy will show off his own wit against the Pharisees and when he finally sees Jesus, his reaction is priceless. Humor is a good thing, but there is also a time to remember that God's word is also sacred, so when the class ended, I made a point of telling the people there that there's a little place for humor as long as it's not sacriligous, nor meant to disparage or in any way change God's Word, and then I found myself getting serious about the importent precepts we learned in today's lesson. Like most things in Scripture, there's a lot going in on the first half of John 9, lessons like God is in control and that the man was born blind for the moment that Jesus would come along and heal Him. God is Sovereign and we are but his creation and He has every right to do as He will. We also see that even if things are bad, it doesn't mean that God isn't using it for something good. We see Jesus choosing to heal the man but only if the man steps out in faith and go to the pool of Siloam to wash. We see that when the man obeyed the Lord, that blessing came from obedience. It was a good lesson today. One for the teacher, as well. I think I didn't cross any lines by being funny, but I have a little bit better idea of just how fine a line that is. Humor is good but used in an inappropriate way is not good when one is trying to tell people about Jesus. I'm glad this story is in the Bible because I see the point of view of the man who was healed and how much he must have thought the interrogations by the Pharisees had to be just too much for a man who probably was jsut trying to enjoy a world he could finally see.