[AI translation] My Christian Brothers and Sisters!The scene of our Word today is a dear, familiar one to us all: Jesus among children. We often use this Word at baptisms or at the funerals of little children, and we try to hide the open tomb from the teary-eyed parents with the figure of Jesus, who, with open arms, says to the parents: 'Let the children come to me!
But we seldom build a proper church sermon on this Word, because in the church there are grown-up, big people, and this story is about children, in this Word Jesus is calling children to himself. And we are no longer children. Yet in this story, and with these words, Jesus is first of all addressing the grown-ups, because it is to the grown-ups that he shows the key to the kingdom of heaven when he says: "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3)
We have all met children of 2 or 3 years old who have tried to crawl into our laps with a confidence that is self-evident, and without any ulterior motive have looked at us with a wonderfully open and clear gaze that we will never forget as long as we live. It always reminds me that this is the kind of relationship God wants between us and him. We can do nothing to please him more than if we seek to approach him without any ulterior motive, if we simply take his hand and look upon him openly, without fear, as our friend, as one to whom we can entrust ourselves without reservation. This is why Jesus' teaching about children applies first and foremost to adults.
Jesus once told his disciples, "He who sees me sees the Father. I believe that this is a statement that we should all take very seriously, because He Himself said on another occasion that I and the Father are one. It is also from Jesus that he said, "the Son can do nothing of himself, but when he sees the Father working, for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise." (Jn 5,19)
Now when we see Jesus surrounded by children, and we read that he took them in his arms and laid his hands on them and blessed them, we can surely conclude that he saw the Father do this, that the Father does this. This image of Jesus with the children is indeed the image of God, who treats the children, His grown, great children, as Jesus did. God wants people to be like these children who have climbed onto Jesus' lap, gazing at him with a pure, intimate gaze, because they know, they feel, that they are in the lap of the best friend.
But there are the disciples of Jesus who, out of good intentions, have made a very great mistake in wanting to spare Jesus unnecessary trouble and in wanting to send away the parents who have brought their children. Surely, if some famous Pharisee or scribe had come to Jesus to argue, they would have made way for him, since their master was also a learned rabbi, and his main task was to teach. If grown-up people had come to him to listen to his sermons, or if someone had wanted to have a profound discussion with him, for example on the Sabbath, Jesus would not have been spared so much...
But (according to them) Jesus didn't come for children, and children who can't even walk, but are brought. Such things are not a waste of precious time. You have to send the children home and tell the parents to bring them to Jesus when their minds are open enough to receive Jesus' teachings.
Behold, what misconceptions the disciples had about Jesus! We all know very well today that it is not Jesus' teachings, not his sermons, not his theories that are decisive for us, but his very person. It is true that Jesus was a scribe like no other in the world, and when He preached, He preached as one who had authority, not as scribes.
Yet it is not what He brought and what He taught that is of decisive importance, but who He was, that He was and is present, that He was the incarnate 'Word of God'. His presence simply meant that God was present, and in His nearness man was sanctified. To lay His blessed hands upon one is worth more than the most majestic sermon, than the whole Sermon on the Mount.
Many of His disciples are, alas, no more different today than they were then. Even today, the main emphasis is on the communication of doctrines and theories. Lectures, sermons and books are still more important than Jesus himself. Many of us imagine that in order to be good Christians we must be grown-up, intelligent, clever people who seek to understand and make others understand the doctrine of predestination, who seek at all costs to find intelligent, clever explanations for understanding the eternal mystery of the Trinity.
It is not at all important to understand Jesus' theology, it is not important to pass an exam on certain Christian knowledge, but to sit on His lap like a child, and when I am there with Him, and He wraps His arms around me and blesses me, then I begin to know Him personally and experience His sanctifying influence in my life.
The disciples were wrong, and many people are wrong today, in not realizing that it is not at all necessary to be big, smart and grown up to receive the spiritual blessing that Jesus came into the world to give. The disciples, and many with them, think that we have to do something extraordinary, be self-consciously gracious, and meet some kind of standard. This, of course, requires maturity and good sense, and children are not to be trusted here. That is why they wanted to send the little ones away from Jesus.
But all that I have mentioned here is an obstacle to true piety. Because it is not that I have to be gracious in order to go to Jesus, in order to go to God, but the other way round: I have to go to Jesus, I have to be with God, in order to live a life of grace.
In fact, piety consists in being there with God. If we want to be very clever, very intelligent, very moral, very grown up and solemn in order to go to him, we are much less likely to find him than if we simply throw ourselves into his arms with our eyes closed, like the children who sat on Jesus' lap.
The good disciples then and now think that piety means some convulsive effort, an exertion in a certain direction, a straining of the best of our faculties. On the contrary, piety means giving ourselves over, placing ourselves in the lap of God, from which all that we call piety then flows voluntarily, without any effort.
The child takes the spoon from his hand and lets his mother feed him, lets her undress him or dress him and put him to bed. He plays, sleeps and builds sandcastles in front of his mother, if he has hurt himself he runs to his mother and lets her dry his tears, if his hands are dirty he holds them up to his mother to wash them. If his clothes are soiled or torn, he takes them to his mother, because he knows that his mother can mend everything, she can mend everything, and she does it. Behold, this is what true piety towards God means: to allow God to treat us as a mother treats her child.
God is a lover of children such as none is besides himself; and therefore when grown-up, large men come to him, in fine order, with perfectly rehearsed solemn gestures and expressions, he is certainly not as pleased as if those grown-up men came to him as little children to Jesus. For in the grown-up, solemn behaviour there is always something routine, something unnatural, something lacking in sincerity, something hypocritical or calculated, and in the behaviour of a little child there is none of this.
To disappoint the souls of children who turn to us with confidence would be painful even for a rude and heartless man, and for God it would be unbearable. I believe that most of our disappointments with God have been due to our lack of a childlike spirit.
What we need to understand very seriously for once is that we are all children before God, so let us not try to appear grown-up before Him. Just as it is not pleasing to us to see a child who is brought up by his parents to unnatural habits and movements, so it is not pleasing to God to see His children behaving in a manner unworthy of a child.
Therefore God dislikes those who seek to plead their own merits before Him, who seek to appear righteous before Him by their own good works. A child receives nothing because he deserves it, but because he is loved. That is why God does not like pious spiritual flattery and vanity. If a child wants to be graceful, charming and kind at all costs, he will achieve the opposite, because grace and charm last only as long as it is done unintentionally, ignorantly and without calculation. Nothing is beautiful that is forced, least of all religiousness.
One more thing: sometimes we see children who are no longer children: they are precocious, too clever, they have seen and heard too much in a frightening way. They still look like children on the outside, but they no longer have the naivety, the bias and the innocence of children in their souls. Very soon they have looked behind the curtain of knowledge of right and wrong and become so-called enlightened. They thought they were gaining something, but they were only losing. There is nothing sadder and more evil than when evil hands sprinkle the fresh dew of the morning with dirty earthly dust.
This is the most grievous thing, and this is what happened to God's dear children in Paradise when they plucked the first fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent, Satan, simply spoiled everything and destroyed the very thing that was the purest, deepest joy of God. It hurt God that his children were no longer children.
Behold, we now understand why it is so infinitely important to God that we become children again, why he places such great emphasis on everything that comes from the childish spirit: because the more we can become children, the closer we are again to the Paradise we have lost.
Every time we come to God's arms with childlike trust, without a second thought, and expect everything from Him, every time the childlike spirit is revived in us, and we take refuge with our troubles not in a strange man but in our heavenly Father, we bring the greatest joy to the heart of God the Father.
This filial state with God is the return to Paradise Lost, or as Jesus says, to the Kingdom of God. "Unless you are converted and become like children, you cannot enter the kingdom of God."
Yes, but how can one who has already been enlightened become a child again? For innocence once lost can never be made innocent again. Yes, it is indeed impossible, unless God's wonderful work of regeneration regenerates us. This is what Jesus meant when he said to Nicodemus, "unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3). Being born again is something that is not up to us, that we cannot even say what it is, that we cannot accomplish, that is a miracle of God in us.
The fact is that God can give even the enlightened adult a new child's spirit, a whole new childlike spirit. The fact is that the Holy Spirit of God can work so powerfully in a person's soul that he is completely transformed, that all the characteristics of a child in relation to God are present in the soul: trust, innocence, everything.
In any case, this new childlike spirit is something Jesus has bought for us at a very high price. That, in spite of our sins and disobedience, we do not have to hide from God, as the first pair of men did after the Fall, but can call God Father again: this is the work of Jesus Christ.
Calvary is the foundation of the newfound filial state. That is why only Christians who take the cross of Christ very seriously enjoy all the blessings of the filial state: peace, innocence, serene happiness. The miracle of rebirth can only take place at the feet of Jesus crucified.
My brothers and sisters, today's Word has led us into the very deep mysteries of God. It is not just that the kingdom of God is open to children, but that it is open to children alone: 'Unless you are converted and become like little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven', Jesus tells the disciples very seriously.
So what are we to do? Whoever is faced with such a divine mystery as we are in this hour has no choice but to pray from the heart: 'Father, through Jesus Christ, make me also a partaker of the miracle of the new birth, and make me your child.
Amen.
Date: 19 February 1939.