November 20, 2022 - Child Dedication Service - "Let the Children Come to Jesus!"
The Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who lived from 1821 to 1881 said this: “The soul is healed by the presence of children”.
It is a rare and beautiful thing nowadays for parents to want to dedicate their children to the Lord, and to commit themselves to raising their child or children in the knowledge of God.
We live in a world that benefits from the values of the Christian faith that contributed to the formation of our culture - values like loving our neighbour as ourselves, caring for the poor, social welfare, even the founding of hospitals - but that same culture has largely left behind the God who is the author of life.
But we know that. And we press on as the church, called to be the hands and feet of Jesus and ambassadors of His grace and goodness. That is a high calling.
So is raising our children in a way that they have the opportunity to see our genuine love for God and the many ways that knowing God greatly improves life. Our children will choose for themselves when they are teenagers and young adults if they will follow Jesus, but we have the privilege of doing our best to raise them so that they know God.
Children are very, very important to Jesus. In His day, children were not considered central to religious life, and we see that reflected in the attitudes of His disciples, who were still learning the ways of Jesus. They tried to prevent parents and guardians from bringing babies to Jesus for Him to bless them with the laying on of hands.
They actually rebuked them, criticized them sharply, suggesting that the disciples really believed that the parents should know better. But those parents understood that Jesus had something good to offer their children.
And they’re right, of course. What is Jesus' response to the attitude of the disciples? Rather than sending them away, He does the opposite and calls the children to come close to him.
He calls the children to him to bless them and pray for them, and then uses that moment to teach an incredibly important lesson that we can imagine would have stunned the disciples and the rest of those present, because the lesson was opposite to what was commonly thought in their day.
There are 3 things that Jesus teaches here. “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them”. The way to Jesus is wide open for children. Jesus wants children to come to Him, to have a relationship with God through Jesus.
We aren’t to hinder or block children, to create barriers that make it difficult for them to come to Jesus. What hinders children from coming to Jesus? Well, right out of this passage we can see that adults can block kids by their attitudes toward them.
Adults can make assumptions - like the assumption that Jesus has no time for them - and these assumptions are personal errors or they can be culturally-learned. We need to make sure that we don’t put barriers around kids coming to Jesus.
For us in the church, as we gather to worship on Sundays, that means that we best not view children being children as just irritating. We best not see them as lesser than us.
I was at a church gathering a number of years back and I watched from the pew behind a woman and off a bit to the right, as she slowly became more and more irritated throughout the service by the children in the service who were asking questions of their parents, moving around the sanctuary; a very young one lets out a yelp over there.
And this middle aged woman was clearly on the verge of losing control of herself, showing with utterances of disgust how she deeply disliked the freedom the children were given at that church to just be children.
That taught me something. As disciples of Jesus, we need to learn to control both our inner dialogue and our responses to the children around us. Children are learning self-control and appropriate social behaviours - that’s a big part of the job of being a kid. We need to let them be children as they are learning - that means we need to embrace what children bring to our worship gatherings.
So you hear me now again saying that children are welcome to be children in our services. They are free to move around and, of course with their parents or guardians giving them direction, they are allowed to be here and to engage in our worship service as children.
We have Sunday school for the young ones, yes. Currently that’s every other Sunday, but we’re actively working toward having Sunday School every week. We’re rebuilding after the pandemic.
But we have Sunday School for children not to remove them from the service. it is so that our Sunday School teachers can give them age-appropriate Christian education and discipleship. We’re so glad that to the team of Lola and Marika, Sarah Melody has just been added.
So we are to let the children come to Jesus. We are to not hinder them in any way. We are to control our internal dialogue so that we don’t cause ourselves to become annoyed with the children in our midst.
Mark’s gospel is understood to reflect the gospel preaching and teaching of Simon Peter, and it’s interesting that he noticed and mentioned an additional little detail, likely because he felt the sting of it.
Mark 10: 13 People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant.
Indignant means “very displeased”. Not happy at all. It’s clear that Peter saw Jesus’ deep displeasure and felt the sting of it. Jesus was deeply troubled by this negative attitude toward children, or even this assumption that He would not have time for children. They clearly were missing something,
Next, Jesus gives His reason for us to let the children come to Him and not to hinder them.
It is specifically because: “the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these”.
What does that mean? How does the kingdom of heaven belong to children and those like children? Well, what are children like?
On top of being open-hearted and inquisitive, children are needy and dependent, and they know it instinctively. They don’t presume to know everything - about life or anything else. They need to be taught. I’m going to play a short clip of our grandson Stevie. This happened just after my daughter and he were talking about bacon.
Insert 14 second clip of Stevie.
I love how he says “No!?!” He is open to being wrong, open to being corrected. And when he learns the correct word, he garbles it, but he’s saying the correct word. This is how learning happens, and it happens so openly and unselfconsciously with kids.
Children are learning about life. Children function mostly on emotion rather than reason. Children have humble learning minds. Because of this, they are teachable. They are like a sponge. Children have great potential. They can master 5 languages before 12 years old.
So yes, the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these - to those who possess childlike-faith, not those who are childish. Children have total dependence through full trust. Every little child trusts their parents. It is because parents love their children more than anything else. Parent’s love brings children’s trust. That’s why total dependency comes from absolute trust.
So Jesus is saying that adults in becoming citizens of the kingdom of heaven must have the trusting, loving character of a child. So love, simplicity of faith, innocence, and above all, humility, are the ideal characteristics of little children, and of the subjects of the kingdom.
This is why you will often hear me saying that children are our models for kingdom living. So, far from looking down on children, we must welcome them, include them, and, yes, look to them as we are seeking to grow as disciples of Jesus.
Our other Scripture passage is a deep reflection, by King David, who was a man after God’s own heart and who, despite his many flaws, had a deeply trusting, loving and dependent relationship with God. Here he reflects on God’s loving care of him as he, David was being created. I hope you take these words to heart. Let’s read them together:
Psalm 139:13-16 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
God created you and oversaw every aspect of your creation, body, mind, spirit - in all your organic, emotional and spiritual complexity. He literally composed your inmost spirit and being. He fashioned you in your mother’s womb with intent and purpose to become precisely who you are today.
You are wonderfully made, you were awesomely and fearfully and lovingly put together for a purpose, and God knows and has ordained all your days. This is God. This is the God that Jesus taught us wants to be known as Abba.
Abba is the Aramaic word, an intimate word like ‘daddy’ for father. The word Abba was used by Jesus and the Apostle Paul to talk about God. This helps to give us insight into the nature of the relationship that God wants us to have with Him. Knowing we are His children, trusting Him because we know he loves us and takes care of us. God wants us to come close, as a child so easily does to her daddy.
So may we hear what God is saying to us today through the Scriptures. May we celebrate both the child dedicated today and all the children in our midst. And may we embrace our own belovedness by God our Father, revealed to us so perfectly in Jesus Christ. Amen.
