When we lived in Texas I worked with a man who was a very fervent and faithful member of a large Christian church. Randy and his wife had twin 11-year-old daughters. They were fraternal twins rather than identical twins, and they looked so different from each other that you would never guess them to be twins unless someone told you. Their personalities were different, too – one was very outgoing, while the other was very shy.
One day my friend was talking about his daughters, and all of a sudden our conversation turned into a theological discussion. He knew that I am Lutheran, and he knew that Lutherans practice infant baptism. His denomination does not practice infant baptism, but requires people – all people, even children – to make a public confession of faith before baptism can be administered. The outgoing daughter had already made her public confession of faith and had been baptized. But the other daughter was too shy to stand up and speak before a large crowd – in the case of his church, a crowd that regularly numbered 1,000 or more people at any given worship service. The thought of standing up before all of those people and saying anything literally scared her to death.
He was worried about his daughter. He told me that he was absolutely sure that she was a believer in Jesus – there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that her faith was every bit as strong as her twin sister. But he was worried because she hadn’t been baptized – and couldn’t be baptized until she summoned up the courage to stand in front of his church and make her public profession of faith. He told me that he really believed that if his daughter were to die, she would go to Heaven even though she wasn’t baptized. But he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be certain. He worried.
Today’s Gospel lesson says that people were bringing children to Jesus that He might touch them. The Greek word used here for “children” can include infants, small children and even pre-teens, but in Luke’s account of this same incident he specifically tells us that infants were being brought to Jesus. Two thousand years ago, it was customary for Jewish people to bring children to great men to have the children blessed. In fact, Jewish women would specifically ask learned rabbis – respected teachers – to touch and bless their children after their first birthday. So what they were doing wasn’t anything out of the ordinary – it happened all the time.
But Mark tells us that the disciples “rebuked” them. We don’t know why they acted that way – perhaps they wanted to protect Jesus’ privacy. Perhaps they wanted to shield him from needless, unimportant interruptions. There may even may been some jealousy here – as we saw in last week’s Gospel lesson, sometimes the disciples wanted to keep Jesus for themselves and keep others out of their exclusive little group. And as we studied two weeks ago, children were considered to be absolutely unimportant in ancient Israel. To their way of thinking, there was no reason at all for these parents with their unimportant children to waste Jesus’ time. And so they rebuked the parents. They forgot what Jesus had taught them previously about children – the time when he took a child in His arms and said, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
As we’ve seen so many times in the past, the disciples probably thought that they were doing Jesus a favor. But they weren’t. Instead, Mark writes that Jesus was “indignant.” The original word that Mark used here is powerful – really powerful. Jesus wasn’t just angry at what the disciples were doing – He was furious with them. “Do not hinder them,” Jesus said. “Let the children come to me.”
The disciples – unfortunately, like many people today – were setting up obstacles that tried to keep children from Jesus. They thought that the Kingdom of God belonged only to the strong and the influential – not the weak, the insignificant, the unimportant. They didn’t think that it was in any way necessary for people to bring their children to Jesus.
Pause for just a moment and think about how many obstacles that the weak, the insignificant, the unimportant face today – obstacles far more powerful and far more prevalent than the self-centered attitudes of the twelve disciples. How many children today don’t even have a chance to live because their parents – for the sake of convenience or for some other wrong-minded and sinful reason – determine that it would be best to terminate that life through abortion? “Let the children come to me,” Jesus said – but in these cases, the children don’t even have the chance.
What about parents who say that they will let their children choose their own religion when they grow up – so for now they do nothing. No baptism, no religious education, no nurturing in the faith, no bringing that precious child to God’s house. “Let the children come to me,” Jesus said – but again, the parents never ever give their children the chance.
Or what about the parents who decide that their children don’t need religion – don’t need faith – don’t need Jesus? People so secure in their own sin – in their own unbelief – that they go out of their way to prevent their children from learning about Jesus. “Let the children come to me,” Jesus said – but they can’t come to Jesus. They’re not allowed to come to Jesus.
In today’s Introit we sang, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.” We can only imagine how indignant Jesus must be every time that someone hinders the children from coming to Him. In His final minutes before ascending into heaven, Jesus told the disciples: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” And 50 days later – following Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension – when the disciples finally understood everything that Jesus did and everything that Jesus taught them – Peter told the people of Jerusalem: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
Not only does Jesus fervently desire for the children to come to Him, but He tells us to come to him with the same faith of a child. Not a childish faith – a child-like faith. That’s the faith that Jesus desires for all believers – a simple, humble, trusting faith that looks only to Jesus. We enter God’s kingdom by faith like little children – helpless, unable to save ourselves, totally dependent on the grace and mercy of our Savior. “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”
When we left Texas in 2005 so that I could begin my seminary studies in Fort Wayne, my friend’s shy young daughter had still not been baptized. He was still worried about her – worried that if she were to die, she might not go to heaven. Worried that she might not go to heaven because she was too shy to make a public confession of faith that her church demanded before she could be baptized. Jesus said, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” Even to a young child who was too bashful to speak in front of a crowd.
Indeed, let the children come to Jesus. Trust in Jesus with the faith of a child – with a total, unconditional belief in the salvation He has won for us on the cross and which He freely gives to each and every believer. The final verse of our Gospel lesson tells us that Jesus took the children “into his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.” So, too, he cradles us, His dear children of all ages, in His loving arms and blesses us – each and every day.
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