Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Communion Meditation-Jesus loves the little children

Jesus not only gives up his life for his people, He gives His life to His people. –Tim Gallant, The Case for Covenant Communion
Matt 19:13-15 13 Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. 15 And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence.
The kingdom of heaven belongs to the children. It is made up of such people. This is the exegetical meaning of Jesus’s statement here in Mathew. And as we have seen recently in our sermons on heaven and earth, Jesus is not talking about heaven, the afterlife, being for children (although it is). Nor, is He here talking about having a childlike faith or demeanor. He is saying that these children are in the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom that Jesus Himself inaugurated on earth. These children are His children and are in the kingdom. So, he lays hands on them and blesses them.
The more we practice paedocommunion and the more we study this issue in Scripture, the more I am astounded that we did not see it sooner and the more I am astounded that the church at large cannot see it now.
Jesus went out of His way to teach us to be like children and to teach us that little children, little carried children, infants and sucklings, ought to come to Him and do indeed belong to Him. To fail to see this is to fail to understand God, as Father, the way that we should. To not practice paedocommunion is to tell a very great lie about God, that He is dangerous in the wrong way, that unless we get things right, He is against us.
But the Scriptures teach us the opposite about God. He is Father, waiting on us to come to Him, eager to forgive, willing to overlook our faults because we are friends of Jesus, covered in His blood. A wrong view of the Lord’s Supper, paints God in a very different light. He is an austere judge, waiting to get us, not easily pacified, is perfectionistic, doesn’t really care if we are covered in Jesus’s blood. I grant that one may not be a paedocommunionist and still have basically right views about God. But, let’s be honest. The reason we won’t let our children come and eat Jesus’s food, is because we think Jesus does not really like them yet. But Jesus tells us, and you, very differently than that in Scripture. Let the children come unto me. I say, “Come to Jesus and eat, you and your children, believing in God’s promises to you and to them.”

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