Lesson: Jesus Heals A Man Born Blind (John 9:1-41)

Materials: tray, various items (big and small), paper, pencils
Activity – Seeing and Remembering

• Fill a tray with various items.
• Give each student a piece of paper and pencil.
• Show the tray to all of your students for a given amount of time (3-5 minutes).
• Remove the tray (or cover it) so that the children can’t see the items any longer.
• Give the students 2 minutes to write down all of the items that they remember seeing.
• See who remembered the most items.

Teacher Notes:

Jerusalem is the setting for John 9:1-41.
Jesus performed more miracles of this kind more than any other. It was predicted that the Messiah would in Isaiah 9:18.
Jesus was walking along in Jerusalem and he saw a man who was blind from birth. His disciples ask Him who had sinned to cause this; him or his parents. The rabbis of the day had thought up a principle that someone had to have sinned in order for this to have happened. They even thought that a child could sin in the womb or that its soul could have sinned in a pre-existent state. Jesus contradicted these “principles”. Jesus said that neither had sinned to cause this. He said, “This happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”
Do you think this still happens today? Do you think that God has things happen to us so that His work can be displayed in our lives? Absolutely!
Jesus spit on the ground, made mud with His saliva and put it on the man’s eyes and told him to go wash it off. He went home seeing!
Wow! What do you think was the first thing the man saw? Remember…he was born blind. He has never seen before. He had to just imagine what everything looked like. He had never seen color. His neighbors didn’t recognize him! These people had seen this man his whole life, and they don’t recognize him?
John 9:13-34 – Pharisees hear of what happened and called the man to them
John 9:35-41 – Spiritual Blindness

Activity – Blind Drawing

– Have the students turn their paper from the earlier activity over (or give them a new one)
– You are going to tell them what to draw, but they have to do it with their eyes closed (this could be done in partners with blindfolds if you want)
– draw a sun in the top right corner
– draw some grass at the bottom of the page
– draw a house in the center of the page
– put a chimney on the roof of the house
– draw 5 flowers in the grass
– draw 3 clouds in the sky
– draw 4 birds in the sky
– These are just examples of what to say for their picture, you can say anything you’d like for them to draw
– Another way to do this would be to give them white paper plates, have them put the plates on their head, and then draw on the plates
When you’re all done, discuss with the students what it was like to do something without looking.