Weirdly enough, a small minority pastors in the LCMS argue against doing children’s messages. Now, I’m not saying one needs to start doing children’s sermons in the service. I get the arguments about the awkwardness, pressure on kids to stand in front of people, and perhaps the emphasis on cuteness over substance. But imagine being an adult male, reading episode after episode of Jesus blessing children, and then arguing against the inclusion of the children’s message in the service.

Jesus uses children as illustrations of the human condition more than Wes Anderson. And the bad guys are usually the ones against children’s sermons! How many times does Jesus rebuke the disciples for shooing away moms and kids? How many times does Jesus put a kid on his lap humiliating the adult disciples who were arguing about who was the smartest and strongest? 

Jesus did children’s messages. He not only taught and blessed the kids, he used them as the perfect illustration for his constant theme: all human beings are weak, fragile, sinners, helpless, infants!

If your’e pro-infant baptism than you gotta love the children’s message. 

Now this is not to say that world has confused Jesus elevation of children with the belief that children are somehow innocent or live in an innocent paradigm adults desperately wish to rewind to. No doubt the inventor of the children’s message was going after cuteness and cheesiness more than demonstrating weakness and helplessness. But… out of the mouth of babes! It’s hard to argue against.

And yes, I wouldn’t mind, like Nicodemus, to go back through my mother’s womb and be a totally dependent human being living in the confidence of his mother’s arms. Yet in Christ, that is exactly what I am – just like those little people squiggling around on the steps of the altar.