In our culture we put more emphasis on how we look, having nice clothing, a nice smile, especially at church. I use the mirror every once in a while, to check my teeth and my hair because I don’t want to look crazy. Sometimes I’m successful, other times not. But I have to use the mirror. Just like my homemade mirror. Do you want to see this? It’s easy to make one at home. It’s not perfect but it’s good. But wait a minute. Look into the mirror again. It’s crumpled but it doesn’t mean you are crumpled/wrinkled too. You cannot see your inside in the mirror.

Have you ever read the Little Prince by St. Exupery? It’s one of my childhood favourites because it’s so good to hear that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” I realized that these thoughts are really close to what God says in the Bible, how important it is to look with our hearts and also to examine the heart. And when I heard about the story of Samuel that God looked into the hearts of the people and that’s why Samuel had to look at the inside to find the perfect king chosen by God I realized that in our lives we should learn this ability to look the heart. Do you know how to do this? Do you know the difference between looking with eyes and with hearts?

Here we are today we have family Sunday and the traditional sap party afterwards. We want to enjoy this day, although it’s still Lent so we also have to continue our Lenten journey toward Easter. We have one story from the Old Testament in which Samuel, God’s prophet, had to go and look for a new king because Saul, the first king failed and God wanted a new king. Samuel felt sorry for Saul the old king but God wanted Samuel to choose a new one. So he had to go to Bethlehem and choose one of Jesse’s sons. And Samuel went and looked at all of Jesse’s sons, he tried to choose the king but he always looked with his eyes. Just like everyone of us. We use our eyes to choose something. But God told Samuel to see with his heart. Yes, he wanted to choose the best leader for the people, he wanted a strong man and he didn’t really think about the shepherd David. He was young but God wanted him because God looked inside David, and not outside.

In the New Testament story Jesus teaches us about the differences between being physically blind and when our hearts are blind. Those people around Jesus should have known that God wanted us to see with our hearts but they were too busy with their rules and laws and didn’t realize that a blind man was healed.

In Jesus’ teaching seeing means knowing who God is. If you know God, you believe in him, and when you have personal relationship with him it doesn’t matter if you can see with your physical eyes or not, with your heart you will see God. But those who think they can see with their eyes and don’t use their heart cannot see God.

Why is it important to see the heart of another person? Because many times we use masks to cover who we are, we want to look nicer. We spend money to have nice dresses, lotions, creams, and make-up, but how much money you spend for your inside?

What was the problem for the Pharisee? Why didn’t they like when Jesus healed the blind man? Because Jesus did that on Saturday and according to them work was not allowed on Saturday, so this meant no healing on Saturday as well. Then others didn’t want to believe that Jesus had done this miraculous healing, they thought that the man was not blind at all. They didn’t look at the man, that he was healed, they couldn’t be happy for him, their hearts were blind.

How about your heart? If God looks at your heart today what he will see? I can see – with my physical eyes – nice people, you all look beautiful in your dresses but what about your heart? How do you like each other? And maybe you think yes, we like each other but let’s go further, how do you treat each other? Are you caring for those who live around you?

Let’s see the two stories from the Bible again.

When Samuel had to find, the new king chosen by God he didn’t think of David, but God did. He was the youngest son in the family and when Samuel visited Jesse, David was with the sheep and do you know what that means? He was ready to save the sheep from all the wild animals, he was ready to fight for his sheep, he didn’t let the enemy get them. I thought about this story when I heard about the human trafficking in our neighborhood. We have youth, you have children and grandchildren. Do you really care for them? Do you want to save them from the enemy? The biggest enemy is when we don’t care about the insides of our children. When they don’t know how special they are, when they have to look for other places to find love and honour. Do we really have to speak about this issue in our church when we don’t really have many young people? We are here to be present with God, we are the children of God and yes, we are responsible for our youth. And it’s not only about human trafficking. Last year the son of one of our good friends committed suicide. His mom broke into pieces and still cannot wake up from that nightmare. And this 20 year old boy was not the only one who took his life while studying in university.

Why did I want to share these stories with you on family Sunday? Because we love our family, not only our children, we love everybody in our family and want to take care of them, want to save them from suffering and pain BUT do you know how to do that? Children of God, do you know how special you are to God who can heal your broken heart and broken lives?

When Jesus healed the blind man he made a remarkable confession: “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. ³¹ We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. ³² Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. ³³ If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

Jesus is the only one in this story and in your story who can open blind eyes. Without Jesus, we cannot see with our hearts, we cannot recognize God but with Jesus we can experience the unbelievable, those who are blind can see.

Are you blind? How many of you can see with your heart? How many of you feel pain for all those who are living without God? Both David’s and the blind man’s story show us how important it is to see with your heart. With your eyes, you cannot see God but your heart can see him forever.