Dr. Rodney Plunket

Last Sunday we heard words of Jesus in Matthew 13, words which reveal that it is genuine disciples who enter the kingdom of God.  They are the ones who will submit to the reign, the rule of God.  They are the ones who hunger after the Word and Will of Jesus.  They are the ones whose lives are shaped by His lifestyle and teachings.

Through this morning’s Scripture reading (Mark 10:13-16), we heard more words from Jesus; and again He identifies the kind of people who enter the kingdom of God.  His statement concerning that kind of person is quite strong.  He says, “ . . . whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

Jesus’ statement here is quite radical, but I fear that we often miss Jesus’ radical message.  For most contemporary Americans a child represents very positive things like innocence or potential.  In the ancient world, such was not the case.  First of all, infant mortality rates were high.  Some suggest that in good years 20% of babies died.  And droughts, floods, wars, epidemics, or bad harvests would push that death rate much higher.  As a result, in the ancient world of Jesus, children were vulnerable and powerless; and those were the things they represented.

And infant mortality rates were not the only reason children were viewed that way.  As one scholar notes, “Children belonged to their father and remained subject to his authority even as adults” (Pheme Perkins, “The Gospel of Mark,” in New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander E. Keck and others [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995], 8:647).  Another scholar points out, “. . . the child was not held in high regard in late antiquity.  Indeed, parents had the power of life and death over the very young” (Craig A, Evans, Mark 8:27-16:20, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 34B [Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001], 94.  This scholar and others refer to a letter from a Roman soldier, named Hilarion, to his wife, Alis.  This letter was written in 1 BC from Alexandria, Egypt.  The relevant line is this:  “If you bear a child:  if it is a boy, keep it; if it is a girl throw it out.”  The negative view of girls is clear, but just as clearly revealed is the kind of power that parents had over their children.  They could just cast an unwanted child out of the house and onto the street without facing any legal charges at all.  Given that context, it is easy to see why children in the ancient world represented vulnerability and powerlessness rather than the things which they represent in our day.

So what does it mean to receive the kingdom of God as a little child?  Listen to the two scholars previously cited plus a couple of others.  Evans writes,

. . . “to receive the kingdom of God,” is to submit to the authority of God’s rule.  Adults, assumed to possess power and authority of their own, will not be able to enter the kingdom, for their own authority will clash with that of God’s.  For this reason, the person who wishes to receive the kingdom must receive it ‘as a child does,’ that is, without presumptions of self-importance and self-empowerment (Evans, 94).

Perkins, after making the previously noted statement that “Children belonged to their father and remained subject to his authority even as adults,” goes on to draw this conclusion:

The saying “to receive the kingdom like a child,” . . . must, therefore, refer to the radical dependence of the child on the father for any status, inheritance, or, in families where children might be abandoned, for life itself.  It warns the disciples that they are radically dependent upon God’s grace–
–they cannot set the conditions for entering the kingdom (Perkins, 8:647).

The New Testament scholar, William Lane, writes:

Essential to the comparison in [Mark 10:15] is the objective littleness and helplessness of the child, which is presupposed in verse 14 as well.  The Kingdom may be entered only by one who knows he is helpless and small, without claim or merit.  The comparison “receive . . . as a little child” draws its force from the nature of the child to take openly and confidently what is given.  The unchildlike piety of achievement must be abandoned in the recognition that to receive the Kingdom is to allow oneself to be given it” (William L. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark, The New International Commentary on the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 360-61).

The German scholar, Albrecht Oepke, writes, “The child’s littleness, immaturity and need of assistance, though commonly disparaged, keep the way open for the fatherly love of God, whereas grown-ups so often block it” (Albrecht Oepke, “pais,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, trans. and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967], 5:649).

With those thoughts in mind, please listen as I read this story again from Mark 10:13-16.

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them.  But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.  Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”  And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

The disciples, feeling, as did their culture, that children were lowly, instinctively conclude that Jesus would not give time to the blessing of children.  Jesus rebukes them and uses the opportunity to teach them and us something about the nature of the person who enters the kingdom of God.  That person is lowly.  That person is humble.  That person is powerless and knows it.  That person submissively obeys the will of God.  Only that kind of person will submit to the reign, the rule, the kingdom of God.

Then Jesus goes even further beyond the disciples’ assumptions.  He does not just reach out and touch the children.  Yes, he lays his hands on them in transferring the divine blessing to them; but he takes them up in his arms first.  So not only was Jesus willing to bless the children; He gave them significant physical contact and closeness; He showed them affection.  As Evans notes, “The embrace is a public demonstration of children’s acceptance and value in the kingdom” (Evans, 94).

Now please hear the point of all of this.  Jesus received these children as He wants to receive us, to receive us into the kingdom.  But He will only receive us as He received them when we are free of that prideful sense of power that keeps us distant from God.

A. C. Dixon told this story:

A dear friend of mine who was quite a lover of the chase, told me the following story:  “Rising early one morning,” he said, “I heard the baying of a score of deerhounds in pursuit of their quarry.  Looking away to a broad, open field in front of me, I saw a young fawn making its way across and giving signs, moreover, that its race was well-nigh run.

“Reaching the rails of the enclosure, it leaped over and crouched within ten feet from where I stood.  A moment later two of the hounds came over, when the fawn ran in my direction and pushed its head between my legs.  I lifted the little thing to my breast, and, swinging round and round, fought off the dogs.  I felt, just then, that all the dogs in the West could not, and should not capture that fawn after its weakness had appealed to my strength.”

I don’t know about you, but I know that sin has often dogged me and driven me to the ground.  It has exposed my powerlessness, my impotence before it.  I have stood on the edge of a spiritual chasm that appeared bottomless.  I was about to fall to my destruction.  And then Jesus Christ showed up.  My Savior of love, grace, and power.  He delivered me; He rescued me.  He picked me up and gave to me the divine blessing of His Holy Spirit.  But it was only when I really knew how weak I was that I was willing and able to enter His kingdom, to submit to His reign and rule.

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