Taken from the classic sermon “The Knowing Of The Son” by George MacDonald:

If the Lord were to appear this day as once in Palestine, He would not come in the halo of the painters. Neither would He probably come as carpenter, or mason, or gardener. He would come in such form and condition as might bear to the present [culture] a relation like that which the form and condition He then came in bore to the motley Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. If He came thus, in form altogether unlooked for, who would they be that recognized and received Him? The idea involves no absurdity. He is not far from us at any moment — if the old story be indeed more than the best and strongest of the fables that possess the world. He might at any moment appear. Who, I ask, would be the first to receive him? Now, as then, it would of course be the childlike in heart, the truest, the least selfish. They would not be the highest in the estimation of any church, for the childlike are not yet the many. It might not even be those that knew most about the former visit of the Master, that had pondered every word of the Greek Testament. It would certainly, if any, be those who were likest the Master – those, namely, that did the will of their Father and His Father, that built their house on the rock by hearing and doing His sayings. But are there any enough like Him to know Him at once by the sound of His voice, by the look of His face? There are multitudes who would at once be taken by a false Christ fashioned after their fancy, and would at once reject the Lord as a poor impostor. One thing is certain: they who first recognized him would be those that most loved righteousness and hated iniquity.


Basically, MacDonald is saying that it isn’t necessarily those who seem to “know” the most “about” Jesus who really know and recognize Him. This passage resonates with me because knowing Jesus in a childlike way is just as rare today as it was when MacDonald penned this sermon in the highlands of Scotland sometime in the 19th century. Childlike faith in Jesus is just as rare today as it was when Jesus’ own disciples spent the majority of their time arguing amongst themselves which one was the most important. When Jesus brought a toddler before them as a role model, it made just as little sense to them as it does to us. The only difference is, we’ve had 2,000 years of church history to make Jesus’ teaching about childlike faith into a soppy form of religious sentimentalism - “Aw, how precious!” That is definitely not how Jesus meant it.

Children are exasperating. They wear you out. They get into EVERYTHING. They go EVERYWHERE. They appreciate things for their own sake. They ask questions and don’t take “just BECAUSE!” for an answer. They live each moment without any kind of Platonic ideal to weigh the lived moment against. The slightest thing can make them either squeal with delight or wail with jilted anguish. They say the darndest things at the worst possible moments. They repeat things without knowing what they mean, but they will FIND OUT what the thing they are saying means, even if it takes all night. They will question you until you find yourself scrambling for your own theory of everything, and then they will tear it apart with their incessant WHYs. They will make you say “I don’t know” eventually. In short, children see the magic and mystery in everything and they LOVE to repeat the experience over and over and over and over until Daddy is so dizzy and out of breath that he has to take some personal time on the couch with an ice-pack. They want to go everywhere and do everything. And yet what they are doing RIGHT NOW is the most important thing.

When do we lose it? When does that insatiable desire to explore and enjoy things start it’s gradual fading? When do we start becoming conscious of how we look to others, to the extant that it begins to eat away at who we really are? When do we start taking on appearances and wearing masks? When do everyday things start getting “normal”? When do we lose our sense of wonder? When does theology cease to be a childlike journey into the holy mystery of the heart of God, replaced with a series of statements that are really just academic, fancy ways of saying “just… BECAUSE”? When do we cross the line where God becomes boring to us? When do we actually de-claw Christ with our own fantasies of a tame Messiah? These are honest questions of mine and the child in me won’t cease from asking them. Why, why, WHY?

Ten years ago or so, when I found myself interacting with the Risen Christ in a meaningful, life-changing way, I came to the realization that He was not unfamiliar to me. That I had known His presence before without knowing Who it was at the time. He was an old, wild childhood friend. There are glimmers of this presence throughout my childhood. Sharp stabs of bittersweet joy. Unexpected tears, unexpected laughter. Moments of emotional deepening. And through it all, an unmistakable voice, speaking through events; speaking through daydreams, through longings, through the sheerness of silence. YOU ARE LOVED, YOU ARE KNOWN. And then growing up - losing the memory of that voice - fumbling the threads of any sense of coherence; then suddenly when the world had turned darker than I thought it could ever get…hearing that familiar voice again: YOU ARE LOVED, YOU ARE KNOWN. I shared the great, deep laughter of Christ under a starlit night. I wept bitter tears with Christ over the time wasted and the people hurt. And then I felt the warmth of His blood in my veins, His wild and adventurous heart pumping in my chest, and I found that Life was just beginning and it would never, ever end again EVER.

So here’s my theological pledge: to be EXASPERATING. To get into everything. To ask the hard questions and refuse to take “just because” as an answer. The appreciate the moment of life I am living NOW and not weigh it against some Platonic ideal in my fickle mind. To squeal with delight (celebrate). To wail with jilted anguish (lament). To grow younger every day. And to know Jesus. Not just “know about” Jesus, although I certainly want to. But to KNOW Jesus experientially. And He said Himself; the best way to do that - the ONLY way to do that, is to become like a little child. Learn to ask questions again out of curiosity. Learn to not try to guess what’s around the next corner. Learn to be surprised by what may be. Learn how big the world is; and how much adventure is to be found in it. Learn to make friends with people you wouldn’t normally, like kids do. Learn to listen to what your life is telling you; because the One Who speaks through it loves to listen to your questions, and in typical rabbi-fashion answers your questions with bigger, better questions. (Job 40-41)