I hate to talk about my son too much . . .

Oooooookay, bad start. I LOVE talking about my son. He's a cool kid, for a two-year-old. Cute, too. Of course, I'm biased.

Anyway, we have a children's picture Bible. Now, although it is by far the best illustrated Bible I've ever seen -- illustrated by Dennis Jones and called "Read With Me Bible" from Zondervan -- this isn't a plug for that book. It's one of my son's favorite books and we read to him from it quite often.

Now, my son requests one story almost every time we sit down to read it. We have to read that story first. Then we can read something else to him. The story? Not "Noah's Ark". Not "Jesus Is Born". Not "David and Goliath".

"The Green Sad One."

Don't go looking through the book to find that title. You won't find it.

The real title for that story is "Jesus Feeds 5,000". The story itself, in an "abridged for children" way, tells how when Jesus was teaching and healing the people, the people got hungry, the disciples got worried, a boy had some fish and bread, and Jesus fed everyone with it. Happy ending. No one went home hungry. But that's not why my son requests this story so often.

No, my son requests it because of something he noticed. On the first page, it shows Jesus healing a sad looking man wearing green clothes. Lots of people are around watching. The man has a crutch. He's sitting on the ground and Jesus is pictured on one knee next to him. And, just to make the point, he's sad. And wearing green.

"The Green Sad One."

The next page shifts the action. Some disciples come to Jesus to tell them their problem. The crowd is hungry. In the background, there's that green clad man only he's jumping for joy and holding his crutch up in the air.

To be honest, my son doesn't really care about the real story. When we get to that page, my son tells the story. In one picture, the green man is sad. In the next, he's happy.

Now, while that illustrates the power of pictures (in a way reminiscent of the movie Amistad -- remember that scene?), it also illustrates the simplistic power of Jesus' ministry. He came to set people free. Free from sin. Free from unhappiness. Free from pain. Too often we forget this. Too often, we are sidetracked by problems like the fact that we are hungry, or we don't know how to please everyone, or even sidetracked by our own ministry, that we forget. Even in the midst of miracles happening before our eyes, we forget.

Do you think the green sad man cared that he was hungry? Do you think the green sad man was surprised when Jesus fed the 5,000? No one there should have been surprised.

And neither should we.

It's simplistic -- Jesus can make sad into happy. But it's true.

Ben