Babies provide us with a great metaphor of our helplessness and humbleness before God. They are completely and utterly dependent on someone else. They cannot feed or take care of themselves. They can’t even control their own body. Without a good caregiver, they would quickly die.
This perception of babies was especially common in Jesus’ day because of the prevalence of infanticide and child abandonment in the Roman Empire. Babies were seen as the weakest and most insignificant members of society, hardly valuable for anything.
In Luke 18:15-17, people brought such “pathetic” and “unimportant” creatures to Jesus. Luke made a point of this. In their same stories, Matthew and Mark wrote that people brought “little children” to Jesus. Luke changed the story and said, “People were even bringing babies to Jesus.”
The disciples thought these babies were hardly worth Jesus’ time, so they began to shoo these parents away. But Jesus stopped them. He saw the opportunity to teach us an important lesson. Jesus told us that the kingdom of God belongs to such helpless and humble creatures as these. In God’s eyes, we are as weak and needy as babies because we are totally dependant on God.
Every time you see a baby, recognize how helpless and humble you are in God’s eyes. “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).
By God’s grace,
Pastor Stephen
No comments:
Post a Comment