Luke 18:15-17

People were bringing even their babies to Jesus that he might touch them. When the disciples saw it they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him saying, "Let the little children come to me, and don't stop them, for of such is the kingdom of God. This is the truth I tell you--whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall not enter into it."

It was the custom for mothers to bring their children to some distinguished Rabbi on their first birthday that he might bless them. That is what the mothers wanted for their children from Jesus. We are not to think that the disciples were hard and cruel. It was kindness that made them act as they did. Remember where Jesus was going. He was on the way to Jerusalem to die upon a cross. The disciples could see upon his face the inner tension of his heart; and they did not want Jesus to be bothered. Often at home we may say to a little child, "Don't bother your Daddy; he's tired and worried tonight." That is exactly how the disciples felt about Jesus.

It is one of the loveliest things in all the gospel story that Jesus had time for the children even when he was on the way to Jerusalem to die.

When Jesus said that it was of the child-like that the kingdom of God was composed, what did he mean "What are the qualities of which he was thinking"?

(i) The child has not lost the sense of wonder. Tennyson tells of going early one morning into the bedroom of his little grandson and of seeing the child "worshipping the sunbeam playing on the bedpost." As we grow older we begin to live in a world which has grown grey and tired. The child lives in a world with a sheen on it and in which God is always near.

(ii) The child's whole life is founded on trust. When we are young, we never doubt where the next meal is to come from or where our clothes will be found. We go to school certain that home will be there when we return, and all things ready for our comfort. When we go on a journey we never doubt that the fare will be paid or that our parents know the way and will take us safely there. The child's trust in his parents is absolute, as ours should be in our Father--God.

(iii) The child is naturally obedient. True, he often disobeys and grumbles at his parents' bidding. But his instinct is to obey. He knows very well that he should obey and is not happy when he has been disobedient. In his heart of hearts his parents' word is law. So should it be with us and God.

(iv) The child has an amazing faculty of forgiveness. Almost all parents are unjust to their children. We demand from them a standard of obedience, of good manners, of refined language, of diligence which we seldom satisfy ourselves. Time and again we scold them for doing the very things we do ourselves. If others treated us in the way we treat our children in the matter of plain justice, we probably would never forgive. But the child forgives and forgets, and does not even realize it when he is very young. It would be so much lovelier a world if we would forgive as a child forgives.

To keep alive the sense of wonder, to live in unquestioning trust, instinctively to obey, to forgive and to forget--that is the childlike spirit, and that is the passport to the kingdom of God.

THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT PAY THE PRICE (Luke 18:18-30)