Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me.

New calves

My favourite seasons would have to be spring.  The weather is mild.  The island looks spectacular.  Flowers in bloom and with all the rain we have here the grass is a rich deep green, the Island is at her most spectacular.  I love sitting with a cup of coffee first thing in the morning looking out over the Church paddock beside the Rectory.  We have a dozen cows and they usually calve over spring and that is perhaps the ultimate reason I like spring best, it is the season of new births.

If I let myself I could sit for hours watching the antics of the calves.  They play chasings, head butts and king of the castle with each other.  They are inquisitive and have to investigate everything and test everything to see if they can eat it.  In many ways they are like little children.

I think Jesus enjoyed the company of children.  There is a story in the Bible of a large crowd gathering to hear and see him and with the crowd were lots of children and they wanted to see and hear Jesus as well. 

Can you picture the scene; out in the dusty country side, probably a hot day in the desert sun and a large crowd pushing in.  Wanting to get close to see and hear, children squealing, sticky hands wanting to touch and Jesus sitting teaching the people surrounded by his closest friends. 

Jesus’ friends want to hold the people back a little, especially the grubby faced children.  Jesus sees this and what does He do?  He says to them …
“Let the children come to me.  They are a lesson to us all about heaven.  Heaven will be made up of people just like them”.

What an amazing statement.  The people who populate heaven will be like those children.  Children when they are young are helpless.  They can not stand by themselves.  They cannot speak, they cannot feed themselves, they cannot reason, they cannot dress themselves, or wash themselves.  They are completely and absolutely dependent on their parents for everything, even their very survival.

What is Jesus saying? 

Jesus is saying we all need to be like children.  It was not a matter of what we do; we can not earn, deserve or merit the love of God.  We need to know we can do nothing because God has already done it all.  We are totally dependent on God and what he has done for us in the person and work of Jesus on the cross.  All we can do is be like little children who totally trust and love their parents.  We need to totally love and trust God.

It is a hard lesson to learn but it is one we all need to take to heart.

If we want to be of any use to God:

·        We all have to face the moral poverty of our own existence.

·        We must realize we can bring nothing to the relationship with God, except our willingness to worship him.

·        We all have to get to the place where we know we have no worth except what God gives to us.

·        We need to recognize that we can do nothing for God, except trust in Him.

The wonderful news of the Bible is: if do love and trust God then our lives can and will be transformed.  We enter into an eternal relationship with God; we become adopted by Him as his sons and daughter for ever.

First time on four legs, and they are still very wobbly.