Saturday

March 5, 2016

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”        Matthew 9:14

Thought:

In the first century, children had NO standing in the world.  They were not “little adults”, they were lives born as burden, at least until they were old enough to go out and work (somewhere around 10 for girls and 13 for boys).  No one would have thought to accord them standing as real live humans, no one other than Jesus.  From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus chose to see the humanity of children and women, those who were afflicted with disease, and those who had been thrown out by family and society.  Jesus saw the dignity and worth of everyone, and as John Ortberg said in a recent Sunday School lesson, in Jesus’ mind everyone had bestowed dignity, dignity that was not earned or given by human hands, but was bestowed simply because we are the children of God.

As you move through this weekend and into worship, is there someone to whom you can offer the gift of dignity, someone who is not typically deemed worthy, that you can offer a sense of worth?  For years, it was trendy to ask “What Would Jesus Do?”.  Well, in the case of offering bestowed dignity to the least and left out, we know what He would do.  May we go and do likewise.