As a mom fought her way through New York City traffic to get her son to school on time, he said, sheepishly, “Mom, I forgot my lunch.” She blew a fuse. “How many times have I told you to take responsibility for bringing your lunch to school! I have enough other things to worry about!” Knowing she would be late for work, she dropped her son off at school and went back home to get his lunch. After dropping off her son’s lunch, she angrily fought the traffic once again, knowing she’d be almost an hour late for work.
As she approached her workplace in lower Manhattan, she noticed people running and smoke billowing. She looked up and saw that her office near the top of one of the Twin Towers was vanishing in flames. Her anger quickly turned to tears, as she realized that her absent-minded son had saved her life.
Children can mess up our schedules, our houses, and our plans. They have the unique ability of knowing when to do the one thing that upsets their parents. When they fight their way into our world, everything begins to change. And so, our efficiency-minded society solves the problem by getting rid of some of them before they see the light of day.
How did Jesus see the little ones? Were they a nuisance who made too much noise when he was preaching or messed up his garments when their dirty hands grabbed onto them as they climbed into Jesus’ lap.
Today he talks to us about little children, such an unusual topic for the founder of the world’s greatest religion as well as the Savior of the world (Matthew 18:1-14).
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.”
If we had the eyes of God surrounding the dirty-faced, whiny, messy child is a huge, beautiful guardian angel. To each one He assigns a heavenly being to watch over them and protect them. With one eye upon the face of God and another upon the fragile child, the guardian angels carry out their mission twenty-four hours a day.
How is it we think “adult business” is so much more important because we are smarter, wiser, and more powerful than the little children.
Jesus followed this teaching with the parable of the lost sheep.
“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”
Isn’t it wonderful to know that we have such a tender-hearted Shepherd who watches over us, and when he sees us straying off the path to life, he quickly goes in search for us? Isn’t it wonderful that we have a Lord who values the little child in each of us—the one who gets hurt easily, who messes things us, and disrupts our well-planned day? We are good at covering up the hurting child within us so that no one realizes what’s underneath the adult façade that we put on. It is this child within that attracts the mercy from the heart of Jesus.
Let us come to Jesus just as we are, little children who need his constant attention. And let us value the little ones he puts in our lives to remind us of God’s value system.
