Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew
18:1-10)
See that you not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in
heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
In 2 Kings chapter 6, there is an event
where the prophet Elisha and his servant go out early in the morning and see their
city surrounded by an army of horses and chariots. The servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He said,
“Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with
them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may
see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the
mountains were full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
Let’s never forget these words: Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. What a great encouragement this passage is to our faith! Today, we celebrate the old church festival of St Michael and All Angels—it is so easy for us to get discouraged by all the things that are happening in our neighbourhoods, towns, in our country and throughout the world. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them! Remember that in the “Holy holy holy” we call God the Lord of hosts. That means, the Lord who has great armies, great armies of angels—angels who fight and defend what is good and right and true and honourable and lovely.
Our Gospel reading today is from Matthew
18, and in actual fact doesn’t say an enormous amount about angels. Mostly it
talks about children and the “little people” of this world. In the previous
chapter, in Matthew 17, Jesus had gone up a mountain for his transfiguration. The
face of Jesus shone like
the sun, and his clothes became white as light. Jesus took Peter, James and John with him by themselves. Later in the
chapter, Jesus and the disciples came to Capernaum and the tax-collectors
required Jesus to pay a tax. Jesus sends Peter off on a little fishing trip and
says: Go to the sea and cast a hook and
take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel.
Take that and give it to them for me and yourself.
So we see that Jesus lets only three
disciples see the transfiguration. Also, he sent Peter on a special trip by
himself to fish for a shekel. You can imagine that the other disciples would
start to grumble a bit and wonder if Jesus was playing favourites!
So we read: At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven?” In some sense, they’re
too embarrassed to just come out and ask Jesus, “What’s so good about Peter?”
So instead they ask him, “Who’s the greatest?” If Peter’s the greatest, they
want Jesus to stop beating around the bush and just come out and say it.
At the same time, there’s something good
here: Christians today should imitate the disciples, so that if some question
of doubt arises among us and we don’t know how to settle it, we should all go together
to Jesus and ask him the question. Jesus is the light which shines in the darkness. He is the true light
that enlightens everyone. However, we
shouldn’t expect Jesus to answer us deep within our hearts. Each Christian
is given a new heart—we sing each Sunday in the offertory song from Psalm 51: Create in me a clean heart, O God. Put a new
and right spirit within me. The new
heart that God gives to us by his Holy Spirit is not a heart that trusts in itself.
That’s what old hearts do. Only old, sinful hearts think that good things come
out of them. A new heart trusts in the word of God. All the good things
we need come from God’s word revealed to us in the Scripture. So when we want
to go and ask Jesus a question, we should expect the answer to be found in the
Scripture. And if we receive an answer to our question in our own heart which
is against the Scripture, then we know that the answer didn’t come from Jesus
at all, but rather was a fiery dart
of the evil one. So it’s a good
thing to ask Jesus a question—but only the living words of Jesus, the words of
the Scripture, can strengthen our sinful hearts.
Also, the disciples realise something here
which is very significant, something which many Christians don’t understand
anymore today. In the kingdom of heaven, not everyone is equal. Now in some
sense, yes, everyone is equal in that we were all equally created by God, and Jesus
died equally for each person in the world. But sometimes there are certain
people who are chosen for special work in the kingdom of God—we can look back at
Christian history and realise that sometimes there have been some people who
have seemed to be completely alone in their confession of the truth. Think of
all the times St Paul, for example, was completely alone. Also, later in
history, St Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria in Egypt in the 4th
century, was one of the few people to defend the true teaching about the
divinity of Jesus Christ at a time when many people thought he was God’s first
creation. He was known as “Athanasius contra mundum” (“Athanasius against the
world”). And then, we think of Martin Luther, for example, who was very lonely
in the confession that Christians are justified by faith not by works, in a
time when the exact opposite was being promoted at the highest levels of the
church. All of us today benefit from the faithful witness of these people in
Christian history—we don’t resent them for having been given a special task in
the history of the church, but we thank God for these people. The disciples here
also knew that there is a kind of inequality among Christians, not in their
value or worth in the sight of God, but in their calling.
So we read: And calling to him a child, [Jesus] put him in the midst of them
and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you
will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus
is not telling the disciples to become “young”, but “innocent”. Children have
not learnt all the heartache of adulthood yet—they are quick to cry, quick to
forgive and quick to laugh. They trust what adults tell them. But Jesus also says:
Unless you turn. Unless you convert. This ambition and jealousy that the disciples have is
not from the Holy Spirit—they need to repent of it and turn around and convert.
If God wants to use them in a special way, he will exalt them at the proper time, not when they choose. In the meantime, the disciples need to convert,
turn and become like children—they need humility. Jesus even warns them in such
a way that if they stay prideful and arrogant and ambitious and jealous, they
could even be thrown out of the kingdom of heaven. He says: Unless you turn and become like children, you
will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Our whole society today is one where
people think they have outgrown Christianity. Maybe you too think that you have
outgrown the simplicity of Jesus’ words and you’re looking for something more
spiritual, more intellectual, more practical. This attitude is not a mature
attitude: it’s a childish attitude. It’s the attitude of a sulky, rebellious teenager
who needs a Christian education. There’s a reason why so many people lose the
faith when they become teenagers: it’s because they mistake growing up and
becoming an adult with hating children, and hating simplicity. They try to make
themselves grown up by looking down on children. Our world today is full of
spiritual teenagers—people who are teenagers for their whole lives: they hate
children and childhood, and yet they never grow up. There’s nothing worse than
a 30, 40, 50, 60, 85 year old teenager! No—a Christian adult values the small
people, the little people, the humble, the children, the innocent. Christianity
is simple. It is simple in the way it condemns all your sin, and it is simple
in the way it forgives all your sin.
So Jesus says: Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.
When we learn the bible and study it,
half the battle for us is to break down all the barriers to the Holy Spirit
that we have learnt later in life. If we’re going to be saved, we need to trust
our Father that his word is true. And we only call God Father, because of Jesus—we
learn to call God our Father, because Jesus teaches us to pray “Our Father”,
and we are children of God together with Jesus. And so when we call God, “Father”,
God the Father says to us, “My child: what do you want? What can I do for you?”
This childlike faith is so simple! As Luther says in the Small Catechism: With
these words [Our Father in heaven] God tenderly invites us to believe that he
is our true father and that we are his true children, so that with all boldness
and confidence we may ask him as dear children ask their dear Father.
When the Holy Spirit creates in us this
childlike faith, we become children and we are humbled to become like all the
little children in the church. And Jesus says: Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me. Jesus promises to meet us in each physical child, each little person in
our midst that we receive in his name, and also through each spiritual child,
each simple Christian. Jesus says: he receives me. I promise to meet you
and come to you when you trust my word like a little child, says Jesus, and
receive another child just like you in my name. What a wonderful gift this is!
What an amazing place the kingdom of God is!
On the other hand, Jesus gives a warning
to us if we do the opposite: But whoever
causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better
for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in
the depth of the sea. Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is
necessary that temptations come, but woe to one by whom the temptation comes!
And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.
It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two
feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin,
tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye
than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.
So right at the end of our reading,
Jesus teaches us what all this has to do with the angels. He says: See that you do not despise one of these
little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of
my Father who is in heaven.
Do not despise one of these little ones.
Don’t resent them. Don’t think that you have grown up so much that you are
better than them.
Childlike simplicity, childlike faith,
is the very thing that our Lord Jesus calls to us to embrace. We should gladly
hear and learn God’s word, and teach it and live by the word of God in its truth
and purity, in its simplicity.
Jesus says: For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of
my Father who is in heaven.
Simple childlike faith is the very thing
that our Lord Jesus calls us to embrace—it is the very cross and life that he calls us to embrace. We shouldn’t be afraid of childlike faith
and simplicity, because this faith comes with angelic protection.
Increase our faith, Lord Jesus! Just as the angels look upon the face of God,
so we shall also see him face to face, just as St John says: We shall see him as he is.
We know that as we go through life hearing
voices all around us saying, “Grow up into rebellious teenagers like us! Curse
God and die!”, we know that it is a struggle and a battle to remain as
children. There is a temptation to outgrow our love for God, our faith in God,
our trust in his word. But remember Elisha with his servant. Remember Elisha’s
encouragement: Those who
are with us are more than those who are with them.
Jesus says: Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the
angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man.
May God the Holy Spirit kindle and awaken
in us this childlike faith! Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, we know that your
word does not lie. Send us the Holy Spirit to turn our hearts from idolatry and
become like little children, humble and obedient in your service. Send your
angels to protect us, to watch over us, and to pray for us. Amen.
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