Let the Children Come

Jesus had spent a long time up in the north, in Galilee, going round the towns and villages by the lake, teaching and making people well. Now he went away from Galilee. He went south, down toward Judea, and across to the far side of the Jordan river. That was the river’s eastern side. A road ran down the valley of the Jordan on that side, and crossed back over the river near Jericho. And the crowds came together around him again, the way they always did, and he taught them, the way he always did. People brought the ones who were ill to him there, and he made them well. The Pharisees were men who kept every rule of the law very carefully, and taught other people to keep them. Some Pharisees came to him there, and they asked him a question to test him, to see what he would say: “Is a man allowed to send his wife away?” In those days a man could end his marriage by writing a paper that said so, and giving it to his wife, and sending her out of his house. Moses had written that rule down long ago, and everybody knew it. Jesus answered them with a question of his own: “What did Moses tell you to do?” And they said, “Moses let a man write her a paper saying the marriage was over, and send her away.” And Jesus took them right back to the beginning — to the first man and the first woman, in the garden. He said to them, “Moses wrote that command for you because your hearts were hard. But at the beginning, when God made the world, he made them male and female. ‘That is why a man leaves his father and his mother and holds on to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh.’ So they are not two any more. They are one flesh. What God has joined together, then — let nobody pull apart.” Later on, when they were indoors in the house, the disciples asked him about it again. And he said to them, “Whoever sends his wife away and marries another woman is being unfaithful to her. And if she sends her husband away and marries another man, she is being unfaithful too.”

And people kept bringing their children to him. Mothers and fathers came carrying them, and leading the little ones by the hand — and some of them brought tiny babies — so that he would put his hands on them and pray for them, and they crowded round him. But when the disciples saw it, they told the people off and tried to send them away. And when Jesus saw what they were doing, he was angry with his disciples. He called the children over to him, and he said, “Let the children come to me. Do not stop them. The kingdom of God belongs to ones like these. I tell you the truth: whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never get into it at all.” And he took the children up in his arms, one after another, and put his hands on their heads, and blessed them. And when he had blessed them, he went on from there.

He was just setting out on the road again when a man came running up and dropped onto his knees in the dust in front of him. He was a young man, and he was one of the rulers, and he was very rich. And he said, “Good teacher, what must I do to have everlasting life?” And Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? Nobody is good except one — God. You know the commands. If you want to go into life, keep them.” And the man asked him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “Do not murder. Do not be unfaithful in marriage. Do not steal. Do not tell lies about anybody to get them into trouble. Do not cheat anybody. Honor your father and your mother. And love your neighbor as you love yourself.” And the young man said, “Teacher, I have kept every one of those since I was a boy. What am I still short of?” And Jesus looked at him — and loved him. And he said to him, “There is one thing you are still short of. If you want to be complete, go and sell everything you have, and give the money to people who are poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And then come — follow me.” When the young man heard that, his face fell. He got up and went away with his head down, and he was very sad, because he owned a great many things. Jesus watched him go. Then he looked round at his disciples and said, “How hard it is going to be for people who have money to get into the kingdom of God!” The disciples were astonished at what he said. So Jesus said it to them again: “Children, how hard it is to get into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of God.” Everybody there had seen camels, walking in long lines along the roads with loads piled on their backs from far-off countries. A camel was the biggest animal in that whole country, and the eye of a needle is the tiny hole that the thread goes through. The disciples were more astonished than ever, and they said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” And Jesus looked at them and said, “For people, this is impossible. But not for God. Everything is possible for God.”

Peter had left his boat and his nets on the shore of the lake to follow Jesus. His brother Andrew had left his nets too, and James and John their boat, and Matthew his tax booth. Now Peter spoke up. “Look — we have left everything and followed you. What will there be for us?” And Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth: when the rebirth comes, and the Son of Man sits on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will sit on twelve thrones too, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” There were twelve tribes in Israel, one for each of the twelve sons of Jacob, long ago. And he went on: “And there is nobody who has left a house, or brothers or sisters, or a mother or a father, or a wife or children, or fields, for my sake, and for the sake of the good news and the kingdom of God, who will not get back a hundred times as much — now, in this life: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields, along with hard treatment — and in the age that is coming, everlasting life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

And now they were on the road going up to Jerusalem. Jerusalem stands high up in the hills, and the road to it climbs nearly all the way. Jesus was walking on ahead of them, out in front, leading the way, and the disciples were amazed, and the people following behind were afraid. He had told them before what was going to happen to him, and Peter had told him it must never happen. Now he took the twelve aside again, away from everybody else, and as they walked along he told them all of it: “Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything the prophets wrote about the Son of Man is going to come true. He will be handed over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and they will sentence him to death, and hand him over to the people of the nations. And they will make fun of him, and insult him, and spit on him, and whip him, and put him to death on a cross. And on the third day he will rise again.” The people of the nations meant everybody who was not from Israel, and the ones who ruled the country then were the Romans. Putting a man to death on a cross was what the Romans did. The twelve heard every word, but they did not understand any of it. What he said was hidden from them, and they did not know what he meant.

Then the mother of James and John came to him with her sons. They were the two sons of Zebedee, the brothers who had left their father in his fishing boat to follow Jesus, and their mother was one of the women who had come all the way from Galilee with him and looked after him. She bowed down in front of him, because she had something to ask him. And the brothers said, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask you.” And Jesus said, “What do you want me to do for you?” And their mother said, “Say that these two sons of mine will sit beside you in your kingdom — one at your right hand and one at your left.” And the brothers asked for it too: “Let us sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Those were the two best seats. When a king sat on his throne, the places at his right hand and at his left belonged to the two greatest men in his kingdom. And Jesus had only just finished telling them that he was going to be killed. And Jesus said, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink? Can you be immersed with the immersion I am immersed with?” And they said, straight out, “We can.” And Jesus said, “The cup that I drink, you will drink. And the immersion I am immersed with, you will be immersed with. But to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to give. Those places are for the ones my Father has made them ready for.” When the other ten heard what James and John had asked for, they were angry with the two brothers. So Jesus called all twelve of them together. Every one of them had lived his whole life under rulers: the emperor far away in Rome, and his governors, and the kings from Herod’s family. And Jesus said, “You know that the ones who count as rulers over the nations lord it over their people, and their great men order everybody about. It is not to be like that among you. Whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant. And whoever wants to be first among you will be everybody’s slave. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served. He came to serve — and to give his life as a ransom in the place of many.” A ransom was the price that was paid to buy back somebody who had been taken captive, or to set a slave free.

And they crossed the river and came to Jericho, the town of palm trees, down in the hot valley near the Jordan, close to the place where the walls had fallen down flat in Joshua’s day. A great spring watered its gardens and its palm groves, and it was green all year round in the middle of the desert. It was the last big town on the road to Jerusalem. From Jericho the road climbed up through dry, empty hills for about fifteen miles, and Jerusalem was more than three thousand feet higher up at the end of it. At feast time that road was full of people walking up to Jerusalem together, whole villages at a time. And as Jesus was going out of the town again with his disciples, onto the road up to Jerusalem, a great crowd went along with him. There was a blind man sitting beside the road, begging. A blind man could not work at a trade, so he sat where the travelers came by and asked them to give him something. His name was Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. He heard the noise of a crowd going past, and he asked what was happening. And the people of Jericho told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is going by!” He could not see where Jesus was in all that crowd. So as soon as he heard that, he began to shout as loud as he could: “Jesus! Son of David! Have mercy on me!” The Son of David was the name for the king God had promised — the one from King David’s family who was going to come. A lot of the people near him told him sharply to be quiet. But he only shouted all the more: “Son of David — have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped, right there in the road, and the whole crowd stopped around him. And he told the people near him to bring the man to him. He said, “Call him.” So they turned round and called to the blind man, and they said to him, “Cheer up! Get up — he is calling you!” A poor man’s cloak was the warmest thing he had; at night it was his blanket. And Bartimaeus threw off his cloak and left it lying there, and jumped to his feet, and came to Jesus. And Jesus asked him the same question he had asked James and John on the road: “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said, “Rabbouni, let me see again.” Rabbouni means ‘my teacher’. And Jesus was filled with pity for him, and he touched his eyes, and said, “See again. Go — your faith has saved you.” And straight away his eyes were opened, and he could see. And he followed Jesus along the road, praising God. And all the people who saw it praised God too. And that road went on up to Jerusalem, and it was nearly time for the Passover — the feast when the whole nation remembered the night God brought them out of Egypt. People came from every part of the country, and from countries far away, to keep it in Jerusalem.