A Jesus Story: The Children are Blessed
Story: Jesus Blesses the Children (A Bible Story Adaptation by Kate Christensen-Martin, plus discussion questions)
A long, long time ago, there lived a man named Jesus. You remember him, the guy we’ve talked about before who lived thousands of years ago and taught everyone about love. He lived his life so big and loud that people all over the world to this day still talk about him and his love. Jesus said and did a lot of things that surprised people, things that were considered different or even unheard of. Things like talking to people who no one else would talk to and interrupting important, powerful leaders if he didn’t think they were treating people very well. That’s what Jesus was all about. Love. Jesus was a teacher of love. Everywhere he went and everything he did, he tried his very best to live love and teach love.
Because Jesus lived his life so big and loud and did things so differently than anyone else, a lot of people followed him and listened to him. He’d travel as far as he could by foot (there were no cars back then, of course) teaching people about how to live big and loud like him, how to love everyone and how to bring change when the way things have always been done isn’t working.
One day crowds of people were surrounding Jesus as usual when a young family with kids tried to make their way to the front so that the kids could see Jesus…
Hold on, there’s something you have to understand first before I tell you what happened next. You have to understand that back then people had a lot of strict beliefs and rules about who was important in life and who wasn’t. People believed that if you were born in certain countries then you were less important than others. Men and people with a lot of money were more important than women and people with no money. Sick people weren’t treated like they mattered. You get the idea, right? And sadly, kids were believed to be the least important people of all. It’s like they thought that you didn’t really have a life until you were all grown up.
So back to the family that tries to see Jesus… The Mother and Father with their son and daughter were carefully making their way through the crowd when Jesus’ students called disciples, got angry and said, “Hey, those kids need to stay in the back and be quiet. Jesus is trying to teach.”
The Mother and Father were very disappointed. They’d come a long way to see Jesus because they had heard that Jesus had different ideas about who was important. They had heard that Jesus taught that everyone matters to God and that we should treat everyone with the same amount of love and respect. The Mother swooped the little boy into her arms and whispered for him to be quiet because she was afraid they were about to be in trouble for interrupting Jesus’ message. The Father grabbed the hand of the little girl and the four of them began to leave.
Suddenly the Mother felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned to see who was touching her, expecting her husband to be trying to tell her something. But instead it was Jesus. She smiled and felt in her heart that maybe they were right all along about how Jesus treated people. Jesus asked the Mother, “May I hold your little boy?” The Mother happily handed her son to Jesus to hold and Jesus bent down low where he could look at the little girl too. He looked at the little boy in his arms and the little girl standing there watching him and he said, “Dear children, you are precious in God’s sight.”
Then Jesus stood up and addressed the whole crowd again. He said,
“Never stop children from coming to me. Children are loved by God. In fact, anyone who wants to help make this world a better place will need to see the world the way children see the world.”
Once again, Jesus taught that all are loved by God equally.
Children matter to God and what they have to say is important.
1. This story is about a time and place where children weren’t listened to. How does that make you feel?
2. Do you ever feel like it’s still that way(kids aren’t listened to)?
3. In the story, Jesus says that adults need to see the world the way kids do… What do you think kids can teach adults about the world?