Last week I spoke in church about the Name of Jesus. Of course I looked for a fun illustration to break the ice at the beginning of the message. I found this one online, and it was perfect!

At the end of the 1960s, many California hippies settled in Santa Cruz. They got married and had children, not necessarily in that order. Of course, their kids’ names weren’t Melissa or Bob. Instead, they named their children Time Warp or Spring Fever. And eventually Moonbeam, Earth, Love and Precious Promise all ended up in public school.

That’s when a kindergarten teacher first met Fruit Stand. Every fall, the school asked parents to put a name tag on their kids on the first day of school. Fruit Stand’s mom did that. The teacher thought the boy’s name was odd, but she’d seen lots of odd names. She would ask, “Would you like to play with the blocks, Fruit Stand?” or “Fruit Stand, how about a snack?” He didn’t say much, but would quietly accept whatever instruction was being offered. That didn’t seem very odd. Lots of kids are shy on the first day of school. By the end of the day, his name didn’t seem much odder than Heather’s or Sun Ray’s.

At dismissal time, the teachers led the children out to the buses. His teacher asked, “Fruit Stand, do you know which bus stop is yours?” He didn’t answer. But that wasn’t a problem, because the teachers had instructed the parents to write the names of their children’s bus stops on the reverse side of their name tags. The teacher simply turned over the tag. There, neatly printed, was the word “Anthony.”