One more wonderful thing about Camp Moriah last week was that Mandy Lovett came to teach the girls how to teach children’s classes. I loved everything I heard in those classes. It was six hours of hands-on learning and had a great emphasis on simplicity and using available (and affordable ) resources. The girls ate it up and I think they learned much. I did, too.
One take-away for me was Mandy’s emphasis on putting yourself in the Bible event; just pretending you are on the ship with Jonah and thinking of how that would have felt in your own terrified mind, at the time. Putting yourself in the widow’s living room when Elisha asked her to give him the last morsel of bread that she could possibly make. What would you have done? Can you smell the bread baking?
The simplest thing that struck a chord with me was Mandy’s suggestion that we take all of the five senses and imagine them in each moment of whatever Bible account we are teaching. For example: Put yourself at the foot of the cross. What would have been the sounds piercing that midday silence? You would have heard the loud clang of an anvil hitting spikes and certain cries of anguish. You would have heard the thud of the cross dropped in its prepared hole. You would have heard a crowd hushed by the execution they witnessed, and yet, some would cry out to taunt the Savior hanging there. You would have heard the women who had followed Jesus there, including His mother quietly weeping. You would have heard the conversation about Paradise. You may have heard shrieks of fear when God turned out the lights on Jerusalem that day. You would have heard a mighty rumble when the earth quaked.
What would you have smelled? You would have smelled human blood. It’s possible that you would have smelled the vinegar or the smoke from nearby fires, since it was cold that Passover weekend. (Peter was warming by a fire a few hours prior to the cross.) Maybe you would also have smelled the sheep that the Jews were bringing from every region to the temple for the Passover sacrifices and the donkeys on which they rode. You may have been close enough to smell the spices that were, perhaps, brought by Joseph, who planned to wrap His body.
What would you have tasted? We don’t know that there were people eating at the foot of the cross, but we do know that he hung there for six hours in midday, and we know that there was not a spirit of reverence, except for the honor shown him by his mother and the other disciples that were present. So perhaps, some were even satisfying the physical hunger while the Lord was satisfying the desperate souls of all time.
What would you have felt? Some felt the clothes of Jesus. Some held the spikes. Some felt the rough hewn lumber of the cross. You would have likely felt the cool air when the sun was hidden and maybe you would have tightened your garments around you. You would have felt the ground shake and perhaps some felt the spray of saliva from those who were irreverently mocking the Son of God. Some felt the warm blood when the spikes pierced and then mutilated His flesh. If you believed this was the Son of God, you would have clung to those around you who also believed.
But, more profoundly, what would you have seen? The bound and naked body placed on the cross. The spikes and the blood’s spray. The blood flowing from this forehead and the clanging of Roman armor on the soldiers commissioned to keep peace as they carried out this horrendous horror of capital punishment. You would have seen the scornful face of both–then just one–of the thieves. You would have seen Mary weeping beside John, the centurion piercing the side of Jesus and blood flowing from his side.and dripping in the dust. You would have seen darkness and people running as the ground trembled. You would have seen the body go limp. You would have seen Joseph of Arimathea gently take the lifeless body from the lowered cross. You would have seen the sun come back out and people hurrying away to observe the Sabbath on this passover weekend, unaware that they had just observed THE sacrifice of THE Passover lamb.
Thank-you Mandy, for this reminder to plug in the human senses when studying. I plan to make this a practice as I unpack passages.
