Do Not Hinder Them

We ran some errands in downtown Plochingen today. We walked downtown – the weather was too beautiful not to do so. The sun, already autumn gold, warmed the ever-enchanting view of my wife and daughter ahead of me on the sidewalks. They looked like icons from an ancient Eastern Church.

After a few checks off the to-do list, our company parted. My wife would run to the little discount grocery store to buy a Knoedel for today’s lunch, and my daughter and I would stay in Plochingen’s pedestrian zone. The plan was to free my daughter from the confines of her stroller and let her little legs run up and down the street, as she had done in the past. But she wanted to go somewhere else. “Jesus!” she cried, pointing at the downtown chapel.

We were at the chapel the Sunday before. There was a children’s church service put on by the Protestant church. They sang wonderful little songs and learned about how, when Jesus was twelve, he stayed at his Father’s house. There were paintings of Jesus on the wall, medieval-style sketches from his life and death and life. At the front, like so many other European churches, there’s a statue of Jesus on the cross. (The comic highlight of the morning was when she pointed out that the Crucified One was “naked.”)

“Jesus!” she said again, matter-of-factly, still pointing at the chapel. At first I did not want to go in. Why go into a stuffy room with Europeanized Jesus pictures when we could still enjoy Germany’s September sun? “Jesus!” she insisted. Nervously, I looked at the stern sign on the chapel door warning people to be quiet and reverential while in the building. “Jesus!” she said. Then I remembered something Jesus himself once said: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them.” I opened the door and we went in.

My daughter pointed to one of the paintings. “Jesus!” she said again. This time she was not insisting but acknowledging. She hurried down the center aisle to the statue of Jesus on the cross. “Jesus!” she said. “Cross!” she said, pointing. I had never heard her say the word “cross” before. My daughter excels at pointing and acknowledging. Perhaps, in this case, it was her own way of worshiping.

In some ways, I find it strange that a child finds Jesus so interesting. When I was a child, I knew Jesus was good, but I had to grow into him. I preferred more adventurous Sunday school stories, like David fighting a giant or Samson’s action-hero invincibility. It was only later that I realized how Jesus, in his ministry of reconciliation, was so much stronger than either. I don’t know if my daughter’s child-wisdom will remain. Maybe, with age and other distractions, her interests will go elsewhere.

What I do know is that one of my responsibilities as a father is to show Jesus to her - to tell her about Him and to teach her what he said. I am to model Jesus for her. For this task, I am insufficient; we both need grace. One day, she will decide for herself if she will live up to her Baptism, if she will live up to this moment in Plochingen’s downtown chapel, if she will abide in Jesus and participate in his ministry of reconciliation. One more thing I know: if she is truly interested in Jesus, at any point, the worst thing I could possibly do is hinder her.