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 We are pleased to offer a new eight part series on the subject of Childlike Faith by Mike Mason. Mike is a regular contributor to canadianchristianity.com and has edited excerpts from his book 'The Mystery of Children,' inspired by his own journey in parenting. This second 'Mystery' book was a follow up to his ECPA Gold Medallion award winning 'The Mystery of Marriage.'
At different times in my journey of faith I find myself praying to the Father, or to the Son, or to the Holy Spirit, or to the Trinity. Each member of the Godhead has a distinct personality whose help seems appropriate for different circumstances.
Similarly, at various times I find myself relating to different aspects of Jesus or to different phases in His life. Sometimes I worship the risen Lord, or the glorious returning King, or the Lamb with seven eyes and seven horns. Other times it's the thirty-year-old man whom I love, at the height of His ministry, or perhaps the young adult struggling with the growing awareness of His identity.
Yet Jesus was also----and somehow always will be----a child. At Christmas all of us have peered with wonder at the swaddled incarnation in the manger. We know the baby Jesus. But do you know the child Jesus? Do you know the laughing boy running through the fields with the wind in his hair? Do you know the wrestling, tickling, howling-with-glee Jesus? Do you know the quiet, contented, playful little boy, happy as the day is long and completely untroubled by the world's ills? Do the know the cool dude Jesus, the outrageously alive, devil-may-care pre-teen swaggering, sauntering, skateboarding through the streets of your town as if He owned them?
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Devotion to the child Jesus refreshes my stale theology, challenges my rationalism, and renews my springs of wonder and spontaneous play. When Jesus opened the eyes of a man born blind, He asked him, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" (John 9:35) His question might be paraphrased: Do you believe that the Messiah will come as a child? Do you believe that the whole world, led by a divine child, can be made young again?
To know Jesus is to know the heart of a child. Being a child was the essence of His identity; it was the way He chiefly saw Himself. That is why He always referred to Himself as a son: either the "Son of God," the "Son of Man," or simply "the Son." He was always somebody's boy.
Jesus knew He was the Christ, the Messiah, the Saviour of the world. But such titles meant little to Him. He did not define Himself by titles but by a relationship. He was a child, a son, the son of His Father.
He saw everyone else this way too. He saw people as children. At times He even referred to His disciples as "My children" (John 13:33). Can you imagine yourself at thirty years old speaking this way to a group of grown men, some of them your seniors? Coming from Jesus this was not in the least patronizing, for He knew He was but a child Himself.
The fact that God entrusted Himself to us in this way, that He opened His arms and embraced the world as a child, living His obscure and ordinary life as a little boy just like me: somehow this speaks to me as loudly as the cross.
January 24/2008
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Dear Mr. Mason,
I would like to point out some things you wrote in this article that do not ring true with me. I hope you will consider these points carefully and make them the subject of prayer. If you find error in what I say below, I hope, too, that you will do me the favour of pointing it out to me. I am sure Canadian Christianity will give you my e-mail address.
1. You said that you sometimes find yourself "praying to the Father, or to the Son, or to the Holy Spirit, or to the Trinity." I find no basis in scripture for praying to the Holy Spirit or to the Trinity and find only one reference to praying to Jesus (Stephen spoke to Jesus, but it was in the midst of a vision wherein he was looking directly at Him). Every other scripture I have seen portrays prayer as speaking to YHWH, God, or the Father.
2. You said that "Jesus ... somehow always will be a child." You also said, "Being a child was the essence of His identity; it was the way He chiefly saw Himself." I assert that this is not true. Jesus grew up and became a mature adult, just like we are expected to grow up in our faith and become mature Christians. He went through a process of growth that included the teen-age years, but He did not stop there nor does He remain at that stage through some mystical concept of being at all ages at all times.
3. You described Jesus with the term "devil-may-care." This is so far from His true nature that I find this statement offensive. Jesus does care, much more deeply than anything I can imagine. I see this most clearly when I picture Him praying so hard that He sweated blood, but caring was a big part of everything that He did. The only picture the Bible gives us about Jesus' childhood was the story about Him being separated from His parents at age 12. Upon learning that He was separated from the parents God provided for His protection, He sought out a safe place where He rightly assumed that His parents would look for Him. He also took advantage of His waiting time by delving more deeply into scripture. These actions can hardly be described as "devil-may-care." (And don't get me started about the casual use of the word "devil" in this manner.)
4. You pictured Jesus as "swaggering," a term that describes the actions of a very proud person. If Jesus had the level of pride required to describe Him as swaggering, the Bible would be lying to us when it says that He was sinless. Yes, folks, pride really is a sin, and Jesus had no part of it.
5. You said that "devotion to the child Jesus refreshes my stale theology." I do not consider it wise to base theology upon a stage of Jesus' life about which the Bible remains almost silent. The Bible is the source of our theology. Imaginings about what might have been should not and must not impact theology.
6. In the last half of your article, you use the terms "son" and "child" with one of their current day's meanings, i.e., as terms that signal the pre-maturity portion of our lives. This is not the intended meaning of the scriptures that use these terms. The intended meaning is "offspring." I am still my father's son and child even though I left my teen-age years behind a long time ago.