Martha
watched her child wander closer to the teacher. He was a small child for his
age. Most three-year-olds walked confidently, even spouting off sentences; her
child could hardly trip along and the sounds he made were not intelligible. Her
husband insisted there was something very wrong with him. He would sit the
small one on his knee and try to teach him words, but her son was not
interested. Instead, he would play with his father’s beard or gently touch his
father’s eyelashes.
“He’s going to disturb the teacher,”
Martha whispered to her husband. “Shouldn’t we fetch him?”
“Leave him be, Martha. You act as if
he will fall apart.”
Martha knew what her husband was
trying to do. He had brought the child here because he had heard of the
teacher’s healing powers. One of Martha’s sisters told her the story of a blind
man receiving sight and there were many other rumors making their way around
the village. Now, the teacher was here, right outside their town and her
husband thought perhaps the teacher would do a miracle for their child. He
thought the teacher would pity the child and heal whatever was wrong, but
Martha didn’t want him to be noticed or pitied. He was her child, her only
child. She hated to see everyone watching him as he made his way through the
crowd, touching every flower he saw.
The child tripped and bumped into
one of the teacher’s disciples. Martha moved to help him. She had seen enough.
Her husband held her back, while the disciple lifted her child to his feet. He
made a motion for the child to go in a different direction, but just then the
teacher reached out for him.
Martha sucked in a breath.
The teacher took her child and set
him on his knee. “Assuredly,” he
said, “I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children,
you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”
The teacher looked at the child and
smiled. Her child smiled back and then laughed and touched the teacher’s nose
with a giggle. He was so young and trusting. He would laugh at a snake if he
crossed one.
The man smiled at her child’s antics
and tousled his brown curls. “Therefore,” he continued, “whoever humbles
himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever
receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.”
Martha didn’t understand. She looked at her husband, but
he was also astonished. The teacher wasn’t going to heal their son. He was
telling the whole group to be like him, to be like her innocent child, the one
who could barely speak.
Lord, my heart is not haughty, Nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, Nor with things too profound for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, Like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord From this time forth and forever. ~Psalm 131:1-3
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