Red Sea

For the last several weeks the lectionary readings for the Hebrew Scriptures have been in Exodus. This last Sunday the reading was about Moses crossing the Red Sea.

For my children's time in the service I looked in my file and got out a booklet of children's art that I had collected quite a number of years ago from the children in our Vacation Bible School/Day Camp when they were talking about the Exodus narrative.

The picture at the top of this article is one of the illustrations of Moses walking through the midst of the parted waters. For some reason I had always assumed that the reason for using red for the water was simply that the red crayon was in the child's hand at the time. As we were talking in children's time I finally realized that the reason for the red water in the picture is because it was the Red Sea.

I was once again reminded that kids see the world in their own way. And if we pay careful attention we may see and hear the scripture in fresh ways by attending to a child's point of view.