Receiving A Child, Receiving The Kingdom

“Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.’” – Luke 18:17

“It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.” - Charles Dickens

Infants in Jesus’ day were viewed more expendably and less sentimentally than they are in ours. It was common practice at that time to place a newborn at their father’s feet: if the father stooped and lifted the child, that meant he wished to keep it. Otherwise, the child was thrown out. Infant boys were not named until their eighth day of life, girls until their ninth; up to fifty percent of children died before their tenth birthday. It was not unusual for adults to have little to do with children, much less a single Jewish adult male, much less a leader on his way to Jerusalem with disciples waiting with bated breath for the establishment of his kingdom. But Jesus stops to say, this is the kingdom. 

I had always read this as: we must receive the kingdom of God like a child receives it. With humility, dependency, openness, unquestioning faith and uncluttered simplicity. I’m sure it does mean that. But I wonder if it could also be read: we must receive the kingdom of God like we receive a child. When Jesus came into the world, he came an infant. God didn’t have to do it that way. Jesus could have arrived a full-grown man, like Adam. 

But he didn’t. Actually, he arrived as an embryo, a morula, a blastula. He was carried for nine months. Caryll Houselander writes, “Working, eating, sleeping, [Mary] was forming His body from hers… Walking in the streets of Nazareth to do her shopping, to visit her friends, she set his feet on the path to Jerusalem. Washing, kneading, weaving, sweeping, her hands prepared His hands for the nails. All her experience of the world around her was gathered to Christ growing in her.” 

How do we receive children? Just like that, with every step of our ordinary lives. We receive with intention and preparation, from baby showers to receiving blankets. We receive with thoroughness: more than anything, parenting transforms every other area of our lives. We receive with unavoidability: we can’t ever un-parent; it doesn’t ever stop. We receive with wonder: so much of conception and growth is a mystery. We receive with sacrifice and through weariness. 

Athanasius of Alexandria writes: “The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him Who came to heal and to teach the way was not merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who needed Him, and to be manifested according as they could bear it, not vitiating the value of the Divine appearing by exceeding their capacity to receive it.”

A baby is something we have the capacity to receive, isn’t it? An infant is within our hold. An infant invites our hold. And so it is with Jesus’ quiet ushering in of his kingdom on earth. This is his very grace to us, to come not with dazzling display, but in a way we could bear, in a way we could understand, and in that very way we see his love for us.