Today's Daily Lesson is from Matthew 19 verses 13 and 14:
13 Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, 14 but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”
After having just returned from summer camp with our middle and high school students, I am giving a lot of thought to the place of youth in the life of our church and the life of my own ministry. The week away with our youth and the number of opportunities I had to spend intentional time with made me think back on the youth group leaders who spent intentional time with me 20 or so years ago. They invited me into their lives and their homes, opened the Scriptures to me, and spoke intentional words to me. They modeled Godliness and Christ-like love. They loved on me. And whether they knew it or not - I was paying attention.
It always astounds me just how much time and energy Jesus poured into young people. Over and over again in the Gospel accounts Jesus is healing a sick girl, raising somebody's dead son, or telling his disciples to go and get the children and bring them to him. For Jesus youth ministry was not a specialized, set apart ministry that took place out of sight and out of mind in the synagogue basement but rather part and parcel of the very core of his overall ministry. Youth ministry was ministry ministry; and he did it all the time. He did it because he knew it mattered.
One of my favorite youth ministry stories comes from Sophiatown, the black slum outside of Johannesburg, during the days of Apartheid. Trevor Huddleston, a white Anglican priest who was assigned to Sophiatown and busy making his name known as a great friend of the black people and their cause. Later in life, an old man remembered seeing Huddleston for the first time as a young child and being taken with his humanity. "One day," the old man said, "I was standing in the street with my mother when a white man in a priest's clothing walked past. As he passed us he took off his hat to my mother. I couldn't believe my eyes—a white man who greeted a black working class woman!" Later, the boy contracted tuberculosis and Huddleston, who would go on to make the cover of the popular magazine Saturday Review, took the time to make weekly visits to the boy at the sanitarium where he was convalescing. It all made quite an impression on the child - whose name was and still is Desmond Tutu.
We have no way of knowing who these young people might become; but I am sure they will only be what they can be if someone like us finds the time and the energy to say what Jesus said, "Let the children come unto me."
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