Devotion:
Read 1 Samuel 16:1, 6-13.
In a recent news story a principal gave a student new glasses which enabled him to see colors! As this young fellow began to see colors for the first time, he began to weep for joy seeing all the beautiful colors and sadness for the years he hadn’t seen colors.
It’s interesting that this scripture from I Samuel 16 is paired together with John 9:1-41 for the Lenten Season prior to Easter. The gospel of John’s story is a comparison of the healing of a man who had been blind since birth to the blindness of the Pharisees who were blind in seeing who Jesus was and in seeing the true worth of people.
Samuel, as a priest, and Jesse, David’s father, were blind to the one God was leading Samuel to anoint to be the next King of Israel. Without God’s kind of “glasses” on, Samuel and Jesse were looking on the outside, but God’s glasses helped them to see through to the heart.
How often do we also look on just the outside? Too often we quickly judge and place people on a social ladder of merit without letting God open our eyes to see their true merit and hearts?
God surprises us in this story by reversing the social order of people. Jesus echoed this teaching often. For example, in Mark 9:35, Jesus said, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” And in Luke 14 Jesus tells a parable about inviting the least and the last to the banquet. Jesus is giving us “new glasses” to see what the kingdom of God is like.
It takes God’s glasses to see a king in David, the youngest and least of the brothers, the shepherd boy. And it takes God’s glasses to see people in the ways in which God sees people.
Personal Worship Option:
Dear God please give us your kind of glasses today. Let us wear these “new glasses” and weep for joy for seeing others in new ways and weep for sadness for all the people we have missed along the way. Please forgive us and heal us. Amen.
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