Title: Like Little Children/Matthew 18:1-4
Contents Today's text contains a question and answer between Jesus' disciples and Jesus. The disciples' question was, "Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" But Jesus answered the disciples' one question in two steps. The direct answer to the disciples' question is, as read in verse 4, "Whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." But before this, Jesus raised a more fundamental question and gave an answer to it. That is, "Who is the greatest in heaven?" The question that should come before the question, "How can I enter heaven?" This is the answer to the question, "Unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
The disciples of Jesus were people who had been living together with Jesus for three years, living together, and living together. They were comrades who faced the danger of storm rage together and battled ghosts together. And if you look at the list of the twelve disciples appearing several times in the Gospels, the order in which their names are listed is generally the same, indicating that Jesus discriminated among the disciples in any intentional way and that the order recognized by others had already been established to some extent. turn on. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, a fierce competition for rank ignited, ignoring the existing order and trying to become each other first and become bigger. The seeds of the hierarchy dispute were sown in the region of Caesarea in Philippi, and they began to sprout on the Mount of Transfiguration. Seems to.
The incident in which Peter was ecstatically praised for making a wonderful confession of faith in Jesus in the Philippian province of Caesarea, but immediately received a terrible and terrifying rebuke, saying, “Get behind me, Satan” for making a mistake in a word was shaken up until then. It seems that Peter's position and authority as a disciple, which he had never had, was an opportunity to be challenged. If so, the disciples who first began to embrace the will of this challenge were recognized as being ranked next to Peter, and even if they were not, it must have been the brothers James and John, who were impatient.
Immediately afterward, on the Mount of Transfiguration, where they had followed Jesus only with Peter, Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here; if you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Moses. I will do it for Elijah." He said, "I will try to make up for my mistakes in Caesarea in Philippi, but when the Lord pretended to have listened and reacted with ten thousand pretending coldness, I thought to myself, "Peter is over. It is worth thinking about whether it would have led to a challenging attitude toward a large position, and it would have sparked a controversy over rank among all the other disciples.
The Korean Bible translated the disciples’ question in verse 1 of today’s text simply as “who is the greatest in heaven?” But if we translate it a little more faithfully to the original text, we can say, “Then, who is the greatest in heaven?” You can feel that the inner thoughts of each of the disciples are permeated in these words, "Then who?" Jesus, seeing through the inner thoughts of the disciples who were immersed in the thought of exalting themselves, called a little child and set him up among them, saying, "Whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." will be And before that, he asked his disciples, "You are thinking that you are going to be higher than others in my kingdom, but do you think you will be able to enter my kingdom with that?" He puts it before the more fundamental question of asking, "Unless you turn and become like little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."
So, what does Jesus mean by “as little children” here? The first characteristic of young children will be their innocence or unadulterated integrity. For example, children are innocent enough to say, "Your mother told you not to tell Dad that you did this" when adults say, "Your mother told you not to tell Dad that you did this." Isn't the Lord saying that the kingdom of God belongs to such innocent people?
A second characteristic of young children is their dependence on their parents. Young children are relatively weak in every way. So, you have to be more dependent. There is nothing you can do on your own unless you learn a lot as you grow up and do it for a long time, and you are not confident that you can do anything on your own. “Mom, I am hungry, give me food”, “Dad I am tired of peeing, give me a rest” and “Mom, I am sleepy, put me to sleep” are children. However, children who cannot do anything on their own, do everything they want, and have everything they have. It is children who get everything from Mom and Dad by clinging completely to Mom and Dad. Isn't Jesus teaching us now that God wants us humans to be like these little children toward God? Are you not saying that people whose only strength is to rely on God will inherit the kingdom of God?
Today is Children's Day. We hope that this will be an opportunity for us to reflect on ourselves by using children as a mirror. “Unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” I hope that the words of God addressed to each of us will be heard today. We should all become children who please God by turning away from all the lies and pride, distrust and anxiety, prejudice and discrimination, greed, heartlessness, and wickedness of adults and become like children.