Mark 10:13

‘And they brought to him little children in order that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them.'

This incident in one way stands by itself, but it is actually introductory to what follows, for it pronounces on how anyone must enter under the Kingly Rule of God in the light of a young man who will come to Jesus with precisely that question, but not in a frame of mind to receive it.

‘Little children' (the Lucan parallel has ‘infants', that is, small children not babes in arms) were brought to Jesus by their parents and relatives (Luke 18:15). They wanted the blessing of the great prophet on them. His very touch would be seen as bringing blessing. At certain feasts it was a recognised thing that children could be brought to the Rabbis to be blessed, but this was not a special time and the disciples knew how tired Jesus was and what little opportunity He had had for rest. And so they rebuked the mothers for seeking to bother Jesus. Would they have so rebuked Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, had he come again to see Jesus? They had still not learned the true meaning of greatness.