August 28, 2011
Dear friends in Christ.
At some point between the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s a preacher named Clare Herbert Woolston, took the words of our lesson today and wrote a hymn about it. Though this particular hymn is not in our hymnal, I would be willing to bet that each and every one of you know it by heart, or at least the refrain, by heart, for the hymn that Mr. Woolston wrote is the well known children’s song, Jesus Loves the Little Children. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can still remember learning this song when I was in Sunday school. Though I was only about 5 years old, I still remember the impact that this song had on me, because it assured me that even though I was just a child, I was precious to Jesus. I was precious to him and he loved me just like he loved all the children of the world. Even though my parents had taught me that very truth, modeled it for me in their love for me, and brought me to Jesus through baptism, home devotions, Sunday school, and Sunday morning worship, this song revealed the truth in a whole new light. It assured me that Jesus loved me, and that he wanted me, a child of maybe 5 years old, to come to him.
Now, I don’t know if these words ever affected you in the same way that they affected me, but even if they didn’t these words reveal a very beautiful truth. These words assure us that each and every child, no matter what age they might be, no matter what nationality they might hail from, no matter if they are a boy or a girl; each and every child is precious to Jesus and Jesus wants all the little children to come to him. This, in fact, is the very truth that Jesus was teaching to his disciples in our lesson today. So, if you haven’t already done so, I invite you to open your Bibles to Mark 10:13-16 and we will hear Jesus himself inviting the little children to come to him.
Now, as you are turning to Mark 10, let me set the stage for you. Jesus was in the last six months of his earthly ministry, and he, and his disciples, were traveling on their way to Jerusalem. As they went, Jesus was traveling through towns and villages one last time on his way to give his life. Large crowds were traveling with Jesus and as our lesson opens, Jesus’ disciples seem to be trying to give Jesus some space from the crowds that were following him. Take a look at what Mark tells us, beginning with verse 13: “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. (Mark 10:13–16, NIV84)
In four short verses Jesus makes it clear that he wants the little children to come to him because they are precious to him. He wants the little children to come to him because he loves them. He wants the little children to come to him because they are part of the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of heaven belongs to them just as it belongs to us. In fact, if you take a close look at these verses you see just how important the children are to Jesus through the emotion conveyed by Mark. Take a look again at verse 13, and listen for the emotion: “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. Rebuke is not a word that we use too often outside of the Scriptures, but if you’ve ever been rebuked, you know what the disciples were doing. We don’t know how it started but people were bringing their children to Jesus to have him bless them. But it wasn’t just one or two, the people kept coming and coming and coming and the disciples must have gotten fed up with it and they rebuked the people for coming. In other words they spoke harshly to the people with a warning tone, even a threatening tone in their voice. The whole purpose of their words was to keep the people from coming to Jesus.
Verse 14: ‘When Jesus saw this, he was indignant.” Jesus was angry. Jesus was out raged. You could go so far as to say that he was beside himself with rage. To put it in human terms, Jesus simply could not believe that his disciples were doing such a stupid and hurtful thing to these parents who, in faith, had brought their children to see Jesus, so Jesus said to them: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Unfortunately the NIV’s translation doesn’t capture the full sense of what Jesus is saying. The KJV captures it better when it says, “Suffer the little children…” But that still doesn’t convey the full rage in Jesus’ words because we just don’t have a single word in English that conveys what Jesus is saying. For, with one word in Greek Jesus is essentially saying to his disciples, “Back off! Get out of the way of these children coming to me.” And then he adds, do not hinder them. Essentially Jesus is telling his disciples to completely stop what they are doing, get out of the way so that the children can come to him, and never, ever hinder children from coming to him, because these children are precious to Jesus. To this Jesus adds verse 15: “I tell you the truth,” Now to make his point Jesus begins speaking with his divine authority as the Son of God, “anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
So important are these little children to Jesus, so badly does he want them to come to him that he will not tolerate anyone standing in their way. So important are they that he tells us that the only way for us to attain salvation is to have the faith of a child—a simple faith that simply trusts that Jesus is our Savior because Jesus says so. In 3 short verses, Jesus made it abundantly clear just how precious these children are to Jesus, and then verse 16 tells us, “[Jesus] took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.” He didn’t merely place his hands on them as the parents brought them to him. He took them in his arms. He hugged them close to him. He probably put his hand on their head and messed up their hair. He may even have tossed them up in the air as Father’s like to do with their kids. He may even have let them run to him and jump on him and tackle him before he gathered them in his arms and hugged them tight. This is what Jesus was doing as our lesson closes, he was actively showing just how precious these children were to him. He was showing it in his actions as he held them to him, and he was showing it in his words, as he spoke blessings upon them.
Well, Jesus is saying the same thing to you and me today! He is calling on us to let the little children come to him! But how do we do that? How do we step back and get out of the way was we bring our little children to him? Well, the answer to that is simple! We take every opportunity we have to teach our children about Jesus. We bring our children to Sunday school when they are ready and we show them just how important sitting at Jesus’ feet is by attending Bible Study ourselves. We bring our children to Sunday school and then show them just how important God’s Word is by bringing them sit next to us in worship as we worship our Savior together. We show them how important God’s Word is by bringing them to Confirmation class when they are ready and still bringing them to Sunday school and worship so that they can continue to grow in God’s Word. We do this by bringing our children to worship with us, even when they are in high school and by laying the foundation of how important worship is; even more important than that job that wants them to work during the worship hour. We do this by being the parents and laying down the simple fact that worship is where we are on Sunday morning, as one of my high school friends told me, “I can stay up as late as I want on Saturday night, but the later I stay up, the earlier my parents will wake me up for church on Sunday morning.”
This is how we bring our children to Jesus whether they are but babies carried on the arm, grade-schoolers, high-schoolers, college age, or even adults. We bring them by teaching them and modeling just how important it is to gather in worship regularly. Though we may not have always succeeded in this regard, our Savior forgives us. Though we may have acted like the disciples and hindered our own children from coming to the Lord, it is the Lord who forgives us. Though we may have had our own children stray down paths that we hoped they would never walk, our Savior is still looking out for them. He is the one who is still working in their lives to call them back to himself, because they too are precious to him. He loves them and wants them to come back to him and live in his full and free salvation. Our job is to continue living our faith, modeling the activity of coming to our Savior, encouraging them, and each other, and constantly praying for our children.
For just as our children are precious to us, they are precious to Jesus our Savior; as that classic children’s song tells us; “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red, brown, yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.”
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN
