Kids: They're Young; Not Stupid

In the latter days of the Passover festival, the religious leaders were known to come out onto the Temple grounds, sit in the courtyards, and talk to ordinary people. This was a rare opportunity for non-professionals to explore spiritual subjects with the local experts. Jesus was drawn to these conversations. He probably had all kinds of questions about the sacrificial lambs: How did this system work? How was it possible for one life to be sacrificed in another’s place? What made a sacrifice worthy or unworthy? Why did the sacrifice wear off after one year? What would it take for a permanent sacrifice to be made on behalf of all people everywhere?

These kinds of searching questions would have seemed very out of place coming from the mouth of a twelve year old boy. People took note of His earnestness. Wouldn’t you? Doesn’t it seem as if twelve years old is way too young for a person to discern a sense of their God-given destiny in life? Maybe not. In the light of this story, we should be open to the idea that children may be more serious about God than their parents.

Mary accused Jesus of running away like a naughty little boy; He responded with a tone of frustration. I hear Him saying something like this: “I didn’t run away from you; you ran away from God. What’s the big hurry? This is where we’re supposed to be. Don’t you know that? Why are you surprised to find Me here in the Temple? Did you forget that there are seven days in Passover week? When did everybody agree to shorten this event down to two quick days? Was God involved in that decision? Is He too busy to spend a whole week with His people—or are we too busy to spend it with Him? Why aren’t you interested in listening to the sacred story of our spiritual history? Why doesn’t anybody want to spend time soberly reflecting on the fact that the punishment for sin is death? What makes you people so quick to seek forgiveness and so slow to stop sinning?”

As a pastor, I’ve been surprised to receive similar kinds of penetrating inquiries from children who are supposed to be too young to recognize spiritual shallowness in the “mature” adult members of our congregation. I’ve discovered that children may be young, but they’re not stupid. This is especially true of our own children. Sooner than we expect, they’re going to figure out what we’re really all about. We send them to Sunday school so they will learn about Jesus. We expect them to live like Jesus. One day, however, they will measure us by our own expectations—and we might be embarrassed by the things they have to say.

It’s one thing to talk to our kids about Jesus; it’s another thing to talk like Jesus in front of our kids. The fact of the matter is: our kids might stop believing in Jesus if we don’t starting behaving like Him.

God wants us to turn our hearts towards our kids.

God wants us to seek a vision for their lives that is larger than a simple hope that they’ll turn out alright. We need to stop trying to make them behave like good little boys and girls and start training them to become godly men and women. But first, we need to determine whether or not we have what it takes to guide them into that kind of future. If we don’t feel like we’ve got it, then we need to figure out what “it” is and go after it. Most likely, we need more Jesus. Author Tim Hansel was fond of saying that “it” is Jesus (see Matthew 14:27, John 6:20)