Children cried out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (Matthew 21:15) Amazingly that upset the chief priests and scribes. “Do you hear what these are saying?” (16a). Yes, Jesus heard and delighted in it! He quoted Psalm 8, “Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise” (16b).
I mean no offense to any other group, but my two favorite groups to speak with are little children and seminarians. Most of the time I am able to tell the difference. (Seminarians are taller!) Recently my travels have blessed me with many opportunities to speak with—and listen to—little children.
As an extra bonus blessing, I received some thank you notes and art work from students who attend Mount Olive Lutheran School in Billings, Montana. I spoke to them about the value God gives to every human being from the moment we start to grow inside our moms. I used our set of fetal models. As you can read here, the babies won the day! (In an effort to be true to the original, we chose not to correct grammar! We are also featuring some of the artwork sent with the thank yous!)
“Tang you for bringin the babes in. They ar very cool.”
“The ruber babies where very cool. I never actually new I started that small.”
“Thank you for coming all the way from Iowa that was a pleasure. I liked the fake babies.”
“Thank you for coming to Montana from Idaho. What are the baby’s made of? I hope you can come again.”
They knew the babies were not real, but they knew enough to call them BABIES! They knew they were like that once. And by the time we finished talking and touching and sharing, they knew why every human life was precious: Created-Redeemed-Called. (The same message, by the way, we share with seminarians!) Every human life has value because he or she is created by God, redeemed by the blood of Jesus, and someone God wants to call to be with Him in heaven someday.
So I ask you and I ask our culture, “Do you hear what these are saying?”