Jesus and Children (Luke 18:15-17)

We have seen Jesus say several surprising statements in this chapter of Luke. He has spoken of a widow pestering a judge and likened her persistence to prayer; he told a story of a Pharisee and a tax collector, in which the Pharisee was the bad guy, and the tax collector the good guy. In this next incident, he is not only going to say something different, but he is going to do the unexpected with regard to children. Unexpected at least by his disciples. The disciples would get it wrong in the next incident as well regarding what Jesus said to the rich young ruler. So it should comfort us when we misunderstand the Bible to know that the first disciples of Jesus had this experience quite often with regard to what Jesus said and did.

John Calvin says of this incident involving the children: ‘This narrative is highly useful; for it shows that Christ receives not only those who, moved by holy desire and faith, freely approach to him, but those who are not yet of age to know how much they need his grace.’ He means that there is much to learn from how Jesus responded to the children, to the parents, and to the disciples.

It is not clear precisely where this incident took place in Judea. We could say that in an unknown place, some unknown parents took their unknown children to meet Jesus for his blessing. Or we could rephrase it to say that in an ordinary place some ordinary parents took their ordinary children to Jesus for his blessing. And is that not what occurs in countless places all over the world? Moreover, we have no idea what happened to these children as far as life in this world is concerned. Maybe they never moved away from their village or maybe they travelled to different places. But what did meeting Jesus on this occasion do for their eternal destiny because that is where they are now?

Jesus and children

It is an interesting study to engage in, to consider children and Jesus in the Gospels. Children were present when he fed the five thousand and the four thousand (indeed it was a child’s lunch that he used to feed the five thousand). Children sang his praises when he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, praising him by saying, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David.’ According to Luke 7:32, Jesus noticed how children played in the marketplace. Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead. When he came down from the Mount of Transfiguration, he healed a young boy whom his disciples could not help. He healed the daughter of the Canaanite woman mentioned by Luke in this chapter. Jesus used a child to illustrate to the disciples how it was wrong for them to try to be the greatest. He healed the child of an official in Cana, and the outcome was that the man and his household believed, and I assume the household included the healed child.

Jesus and childhood

One obvious feature of the Saviour is that he once was a child. What kind of child was he? He was a miraculous child in the way that he was conceived. The Bible says more than that, of course. He was a rescued child from the horrible intentions of Herod who was determined to keep his throne at all costs; he was a refugee child who had to move countries when he was about two years old because of Herod’s attempts to kill him; he was a submissive child to his parents throughout his childhood, and he grew in wisdom and favour with God from infancy; and he was a representative child who did for his people what they did not do for themselves when he obeyed God perfectly on their behalf. So we can see that Jesus knows by experience what it was like for him to be a child who was mistreated, who went through the fears and upheaval of living like a refugee, and through it all was a sinless child.  

The longing of parents

Rabbis apparently were approached by parents to bless their children, but perhaps it was not common to bring infants. If that was the case, we can learn from these parents that the time to bring their children to God for his blessing is as soon as possible. Of course, the way that it is done today is by prayer.

The intention of the parents, as described by Luke, may not seem clear. He only says that the parents wanted Jesus to touch their infant children. Matthew’s account tells us what the touch was – the parents wanted Jesus to lay hands on their children and pray for them. The faith of these parents is being highlighted. They may have been the only parents who did this during the public ministry of Jesus. Why did they do this? They wanted spiritual blessings for their children, and they believed that Jesus was able to give them. The challenge that comes to us is whether we do the same. We can set aside time to pray for them and bring them in a definite manner to Jesus. While this incident is not connected to baptism, what we do in baptism is similar to what these parents did here.

The logic of the disciples

We can see that the disciples did not want those children brought to Jesus. Given that they rebuked the parents, it means that they regarded the activity as wrong. We are not told why they thought that: maybe they regarded the requests as too demanding on Jesus’ time (he was very busy and having a queue of people to deal with was seen by the disciples as undesirable), maybe they thought the parents were asking for something unnecessary (after all, the male children would have been circumcised and they could go to the synagogue), or maybe their estimation of children in the kingdom was that their role was minor. Whatever their reasons, they were wrong. They were wrong about the child of the Canaanite woman mentioned at the start of the chapter and they were wrong about the children in this incident.

The response of Jesus

There are three details that we can note briefly before thinking about how a child received the kingdom. The first detail is that Jesus does not speak about the parents in his reply. Everything he says is about the children and their relationship to him. The second detail is that the disciples’ response was a hindrance and not helpful in any way. Even at a practical level, if parents could not get a blessing from Jesus, why would they want to be disciples? The third detail is that the kingdom of God belongs to some children as much as it does to some adults.

Receiving the kingdom

How does a child receive the kingdom? The implication is that adults should look at how children react and learn from them. So here are some ways in which a child does not respond to the message of God’s grace. First, he does not attempt to buy his way into it because he has no resources. Second, he does not think of working his way into it because he has little influence. Third, he does not wait until he is older before receiving the salvation that is offered. Fourth, he does not assume that his little brain is big enough to assess whether the gospel makes sense in the modern world. Fifth, he does not start comparing the gospel with all that the world has to offer. The point that Jesus makes is that children have a humble and straightforward approach to the gospel story, and should be imitated.

Child conversion is very real. We must accept that these children would have been regenerated in response to the prayer of Jesus. Would his request for them to be blessed have been denied? We have here a picture of the intercession of Christ. Even how what he does in his prayer for his disciples recorded in John 17 is seen as a picture of his intercession. Nothing spiritual happens in anyone’s life apart from the intercession of Christ. In his sovereign purpose, God had arranged for this to happen in the lives of those children.

Such a thing happening to children is not something to deny. After all, John the Baptist is regarded as being regenerated from his mother’s womb because in an unusual way he reacted to the presence of Jesus in his mother’s womb. It is something we should pray for with regard to the children that belong to us, whether as families or as a church. That is what the parents in the story did.

Once, after a meeting, D. L. Moody was asked if there had been any conversions. He replied that there had been two and a half conversions. The questioner responded by say, ‘You mean two adults and a child were converted.’ Moody replied, ‘No, there were two children and one adult.’ Why did he describe them the way that he did? Because the children could give their whole lives to Jesus whereas the adult had already wasted half his life.

Spurgeon in a sermon on this incident discussed some reasons why some people in Christian churches are a bit like what the disciples were in this incident. Regarding one of the reasons, he said: ‘Another result is that the conversion of children is not expected in many of our churches and congregations. I mean, that they do not expect the children to be converted as children. The theory is that if we can impress youthful minds with principles which may in later years prove useful to them, we have done a great deal; but to convert children as children, and to regard them as being as much believers as their seniors, is regarded as absurd. To this supposed absurdity I cling with all my heart. I believe that the kingdom of God is filled with children, both on earth and in heaven. It is a sacred joy to me on Thursday night to notice certain boys and girls who have for a long time attended the pastor’s prayer meeting with great regularity. Some of you old folks do not come and pray for your pastor; but these children do, for they love their pastor, and he, on his part, highly values their prayers. Happy church which is adorned and blessed by prayers of dear children who early learn to cry to the great Father for the hallowing of his name and the coming of his kingdom! We expect to see children converted, and we do see it.’

How does a child show that he is a real disciple? He probably will not show it by becoming the most brilliant young theologian ever. Learning theology is an adult experience. Nor will he show it by becoming sinless and live without need of correction or admonishment. And he will not show it by behaving like an adult. How will he show it? He will love to talk about Jesus, that is what a Christian does. He will enjoy hearing the Bible read and explained, that is what a Christian does. He will pray spontaneously, that is what a Christian does. He will want to obey God, that is what a Christian does. But he will do all that as a child. Indeed, Jesus says that adults should do it in the way that the child does.

No doubt, the disciples, when they looked at the children would have seen them clinging to their parents. Is that not a picture of faith in Jesus? They would have seen the children automatically depending on their parents. Is that not a picture of faith in Jesus? That is how we should all react to Jesus.

What is meant by entering the kingdom?

There are different ways of answering this question. One way is to see the kingdom as God’s community on earth, the noticeable group of people who identify with Jesus, the visible church. While it is possible to have false members, it is the case that Jesus has a real kingdom in the world that his people should identify with.

A second way of understanding what Jesus said is to see the kingdom as referring to a spiritual kingdom as against a visible kingdom, in other words, the invisible church that only converted people join and remain members of it.

The third way of understanding this reference is to see it as referring to what the king of the kingdom offers. What does God offer to sinners? Through the gospel he offers salvation in all its details. He offers pardon for all the sin that a person has committed, he offers a place in his family as full members of it, he offers peace with himself as a conscious experience through life’s journey, and he offers to them the prospect of an eternity of glory. None of those blessings is attained by working for it. Instead they are to be received humbly, gladly and fully, even in the way that a child does.