By: The Rev. Dr. W. Ross Blackburn
One of the greatest privileges I enjoy in my role as pastor involves the strong relationships I have established with the children in our church. Nearly every Sunday as I greet families in the narthex, a group of our parish children bolt to me, embrace me, chortle, and then grab hold and dangle from my arms. At times, I feel like a human tree with two or three children climbing up my arms and occasionally onto my shoulders! There is something very special about our children, an openness, genuineness, and their perceptions of the world around them in ways that help attentive adults learn from them. Indeed, so often, it is the children who teach us about God and his unconditional love for us.
No wonder, then, that Jesus grew indignant when his disciples spoke harshly to a group of little children others hoped to introduce to him. Deep emotion rises within my own heart when I ponder what this section of scripture teaches us: the Lord of Glory, the Co-creator of the entire universe gladly took time from his frenetic, life-giving ministry to focus his complete attention on a group of little children. Our Lord bid them climb up and recline in his strong, loving arms, and then he placed his hands upon to bless them.
Jesus cautioned his followers, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” When I am greeted by children at church or elsewhere, I try to consider what our Lord is teaching us here in this remarkable passage. In seemingly countless ways, the children I minister among mirror what it is we are supposed to be about in kingdom life. As a father and god parent, I observe that children tend to demonstrate little malice. While they may (and should!) be rambunctious, they are, at heart, truly humble in their spirits. And I have yet to meet a little child who is ambitious in the adult-world sense.
And so, we should celebrate the lives of our little children! Jesus commands us not to “stop them.” Let them come into our lives because they enter his life as well and are welcomed by him in very special ways. Among many other things we may draw from this passage, Jesus calls upon us to welcome the littlest children of all into the world and into our lives once they arrive. These littlest ones are the pre-born, those God is knitting together in their mothers’ wombs (Ps. 139). These children are ours to protect, they are ours to love and serve from conception until the article of natural death.