Though the Israelites considered children a great blessing, children occupied the bottom rung of the social ladder. To be a child was to be powerless, dependent, subservient. Entrusted with the solemn responsibility of teaching and disciplining them, parents were accorded nearly absolute authority. Yet even little children and young infants could receive wisdom from God and their lips could praise him.
In fact, a child was always at the heart of the biblical covenant. Already in the garden of Eden God promised that Eve’s offspring would crush the head of the serpent who beguiled her. Later God made a covenant with Abraham, promising that Sarah would bear him a child who would be the first of countless descendents. The prophet Isaiah spoke of a child, or yeled, who would be born of a virgin and who would sit on David’s throne (Isaiah 9:6-7). This child would be given the name “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
The New Testament tells of the fulfillment of that promise. Luke’s Gospel tells us that Mary, while she was still betrothed to Joseph, was expecting a child, or pais, and that she gave birth to her baby in Bethlehem. This child, the Angel Gabriel proclaimed, was destined to become a great man.
Jesus himself presents children as the model for his followers, pointing out that the only way to enter the kingdom is with the humility and trust of little children.
Praying to the Child
One of my best friends in graduate school was an Iranian student I’ll call Fatemeh. After she graduated, Fatemeh returned home just in time for the Iranian Revolution and the subsequent Iran-Iraq war. I lost touch with her until she visited her sister in Canada, several years later.
Fatemeh and I had always had spirited conversations about religion, and by the time I met up with her in Canada, the American press was characterizing Iran as a country full of Islamic fundamentalists. But when I enquired about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in her country, my friend emphatically stated that “Nobody in Iran has faith anymore. Everyone is disillusioned.” I took that to mean that, at least in her circle, among many educated Iranians, faith had evaporated.
Fatemeh went on to explain that during the Iran-Iraq war, religious leaders had urged small children to run across mine fields to clear the way for ground troops, assuring them a place in paradise for doing so. How, she wondered, could anyone have faith in anything after that?
The story shocked me. Since then I have learned that there are an estimated 100 million land mines buried in 65 countries around the world. Of course no one would ever suggest that this intractable problem be solved by the sacrifice of innocent lives.
What has any of this to do with the biblical promise of a child who would come to save his people? Only that sin is something like those hidden land mines, scattered throughout the world waiting for a chance to destroy us. From the first, there were hints of a child who would defeat the power of evil. In Genesis, God cursed the snake who tempted Eve, saying, “I will make your descendants and her descendant hostile toward each other. He will crush your head and you will bruise his heel.”(3:15) Christ was born into the world to fulfill this promise--to clear the way for you and me so that we will not be blown away by sin’s explosive, disfiguring power.
