Bring the Children to Jesus
When I briefly looked at the heading of today’s reading in my Bible, I thought I knew exactly what I was going to write about. I just knew that I was going to focus on Jesus being indignant or much displeased with his disciples for attempting to stop the children from being brought to him. I thought I would focus on loving the little people in our lives. I thought, maybe, there was a deeper meaning to the word we translate as indignant, but that word, aganakteo, simply means indignant or much displeased. No surprise there. However, before I sat down to talk about a story most of us have heard many times before, I happened to look at the Greek words found in the rest of the reading. One of the words caught my eye: prosphero. It caught my eye because it is normally used when talking about giving an offering.
In our reading, we read, “And they were bringing children to him…” The phrase “they were bringing” is translated from the word prosphero. The people were not simply pushing their children up so they could say they met the mighty teacher and rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth. They were bringing their children to Jesus as a form of worship, an offering to him. This action is validated by Jesus in verse 16 when we read that he blessed them. The word we translate as ‘blessed’ is eulogeo which means to consecrate a person to do a work. (This is where some churches get the idea of baby dedications.) Matthew Henry explained Jesus was setting an example for the admittance and inclusion of children in the church and the kingdom of God. He wrote that Jesus, “Took this occasion to declare that that kingdom admitted little children to be the subjects of it, and gave them a title to the privileges of subjects. Nay, the kingdom of God is to be kept up by such: they must be taken in when they are little children, that they may be secured for hereafter, to bear up the name of Christ.”
Jesus dedicated those children for work in the gospel. He connected their lives with the Kingdom of God much the same way Hannah dedicated her yet-to-be-conceived son to work in God’s temple in 1 Samuel 1:11. Their lives were dedicated to the Lord. That comes with a responsibility for the parents, relatives, and friends of those children. A dedication is not a magical occurrence that will ensure our children grow to accept Christ as their Savior and live for the Lord. We have to teach them. We have to honor that dedication until they are able to pick up the oath and make it their own. When we give our children as an offering to God, we don’t wash our hands of responsibilities. We take on more. Let us never take that dedication lightly. Let us never take on that dedication alone either. As a community of believers, it is our responsibility to make sure those little ones running up and down the pews and crying in the back know their Savior. Children are hardwired to learn. Let’s make sure we are teaching.
(Written by Keegan Harkins.)
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