Matthew 19:13-15: Jesus blesses children and confronts a big baby

“Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus in Matthew 19:14

 “Have you ever noticed that when you tell the smallest child about God, it never asks with strangeness and wonder, “What or who is God?” – but listens with shining face to the words as though they were soft loving sounds from the land of home?  Or when you teach a child to fold its little hands in prayer, it does this… as though there were opening for it that world of which it had been dreaming with longing and anticipation.”  (R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel, p. 743)

“I have found Him good, so good, indeed, that all the good I have has come to me through Him.”  (Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, “June 2, evening”)

This vignette where Jesus lays His hands on children and blesses them can be seen as a back bookend with the front bookend being Matthew 18:1-3.  Both bookends look the same: Jesus blessing and valuing children.  A common theme runs between the two bookends.  That theme is instruction on the care of His sheep: avoiding stumbling blocks, bringing back the wayward sheep, forgiving others because Christ has forgiven us, treasuring both marriage and celibacy, and the blessing of children.   The current chapter break was made because of a geographic change (19:1) but the theme which begins chapter 18 runs all the way through 19:15. 

 

This passage begins with the disciples once again trying to act like alpha males in a patriarchal society.  Just moments ago, they balked at the high value Jesus placed on women when they said, “It is better to not marry.” (19:10).  Now they feel as if the Master should not be troubled by the townspeople who brought their children to Him so he might lay his hands on them and pray (v.13).   Jesus simultaneously destroys their preconceived notions of male supremacy and yet affirms His cultural role as a patriarch by saying, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them” (v. 14).   

I believe that we are all born with a sinful nature as heirs of Adam (Romans 5:12,18).  However children also display a quiet trust and an uncynical heart toward the things of God.  As was mentioned in the devotion from Matthew 18:1-6, “Childlike innocence doesn’t boast or brag; a child rests and trusts.  There is no place for status or boasting in the kingdom of God.   Rather, we hope, we rejoice, and we rest in the Fatherhood of God.”   This is why Jesus said that to a child “belongs the kingdom of heaven” (v.14).  

  

Yet lurking in the crowd, waiting for the right moment, was another child.  Although this child was not a child by chronological age, he was a child by spiritual age; for he had not yet grown up and who was full of himself (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).  Once Jesus had departed after tenderly praying for children, this rich young ruler jumped forward and blurted out, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”(v.16)   In one verse we go from the blessing of children to the hell of egotism.    

All his life this man had kept a careful tally of all of his good deeds and was careful to keep the commandments.  Surely he was also an expert on letting others know of these very facts.  On one hand, all of us at some point on our spiritual journey have turned to the heavens and asked, “What must I do to have eternal life?”  And this man’s question is not unlike the question in Acts 2:37 where the crowd asks Peter, “What shall we do?”  Whereas the crowd in Acts 2 was influenced by the Spirit, the young ruler in Matthew 19 was influenced by his own sense of religious self-importance.

Jesus challenges the rich young ruler’s assumption of goodness in two ways.  First, man cannot ask, “What *good* thing shall *I do* that I may obtain eternal life?”   The standard for good, for holiness, for perfection lies not in man religious efforts but in the character of God.  Second, Jesus was not content with being known as just a “Teacher.”  Jesus blessed Peter for his proclamation that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (16:16).    God Incarnate was not going let this rich young ruler get away with the belief that He was just a good teacher (Mark 10:17); He let the young man know that only God is good (v.17).    By saying, “There is only One who is good (v. 17), Jesus challenges the beliefs that man can work his way to heaven and that Jesus is just a good moral teacher, nothing more. 

C.S. Lewis famously said in his book Mere Christianity, “"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher…You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher."

How will you come to Jesus?  Will you come with child-like faith resting and trusting in Him?  Or will you come with your own sense of piety determined to earn points with God through your religious efforts?   Do we call Him “Good Teacher” and line him up with all of history’s other religious sages?  Or do we bow and call Him “my Lord and my God”?   Jesus leaves us with only one choice.