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JESUS & the paralyzed men

I have been telling stories of Jesus to the children at our church's preschool. You can read the others here and here and here. With preschoolers, you can plan all you want and think you're creative. But there's always a wild card to factor in; the preschoolers.

For this retelling of the paralyzed man with 4 friends, I asked for one lucky volunteer.
You guys sure about this?

We’re going to ask him to lay down in the middle of the floor and the rest of us will circle around him. Then we will tell him he needs to trust the rest of us while we pick him up, and then toss him through a hole in the roof of a house. Crazy, right?

I wonder, would you trust us if I said we were going to do that? What if you were unable to move and I said it would make you better if you let us throw you in? Would you be willing to take that chance?

That’s what 4 guys did with a friend when they heard Jesus was inside the house. Okay, they didn’t throw him. They lowered him carefully, though I think Jesus could have made him all better even if they had dropped him. I imagine that guy on the mat was very trusting and very hopeful that Jesus would heal him.

There’s another story, in John 5, of a guy who had lost hope that he would ever be better. This guy was unable to walk. He’d been unable to walk for 38 years. That’s almost as long as I've been alive! (I can seem pretty old to a preschooler!)

Jesus asked this guy if he wanted to be better. Even though the guy’s answer wasn't the greatest, Jesus healed him and made it so he could walk. (There's a sermon in there for people about how God can do whatever He wants no matter what we hope for. I digress.)

We have a lot of stories of people who Jesus healed. Many of those people put their hope and trust in Jesus. Jesus wants you to put your hope in Him as well.
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