Suffer Not the Little Children

It's unofficially summertime. School's out and the children are all at play. It's times like this that I tend to reminisce about my childhood.

I spent many mornings at my friend Ralph's house. We would go into the garage and make wooden swords for our little group of buddies. Once we were satisfied with the amount of swords we made, we would then go into my field and proceed to beat the tar out of ourselves. On really good days, we would have enough friends over, we would divide up into teams and beat each other up.

As we progressed into high school we figured out how to make different styles of swords, along with different types of hand to hand weapons. The most amazing thing is that we didn't lose an eye, break bones or get concussions from all the fighting that we did.

One day we were out goofing off (beating the tar out of each other) and we were approached by a kindly gentleman. He politely informed us that we were wasting our lives by having frivolous fun and that Jesus did not approve and that he would punish us (His exact phrasing can not be published). The six of us stood there in stunned silence at this gentleman's condemnation of us.

As I sit back and ponder this scenario, one thing really begins to bother me. If we had not known about Jesus that day, we probably would have turned away from Jesus on that day. The fear tactic only serves to push people away, especially children. He does not want people to push children of any age away from him. One of the few times that Jesus was really angry, was a time that the disciples would not let children near him, “The people brought children to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus was irate and let them know it: "Don't push these children away. Don't ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom.” (Mark 10:13,14 MSG).

What that gentleman did could have pushed us away from Jesus. Christians should not do anything that will push a child away from Jesus. Imagine if a police officer walked up to a group of teenagers sitting at the park and the police officer said, “You kids are nothing but trouble and I know your type. I want you to know, I have my eye on all of you.” The families of those children would go berserk. Why? Because a police officer is to be a friend to the children, not the judge, jury and executioner. If any of those children were in desperate need of help, would they approach any police officer after that point? No. Such is the same with Christians. Instead of condemning kids for being kids, we should embrace them for being kids. Christians need to be friends with the kids, not their enemies. For Christ is their friend and not their enemy.

As for my group of friends that day. One is teaching Hebrew at a Christian university. One is a chaplain at a hospital and he and his wife are youth leaders in their local church. One is currently the supply Pastor at a local church. Not bad for a bunch of kids who were only concerned with beating the tar of ourselves.