"If we loved children, we would have a few. If we had them, we would want them as children, and would love the wonder with which they behold the world, and would hope that some of it might open our own eyes a little. We would love their games, and would want to play them once in a while, stirring in ourselves those memories of play that no one regrets, and that are almost the only things an old man can look back on with complete satisfaction. We would want our children tagging along after us, or if not, then only because we would understand that they had better things to do."
Anthony Esolen, Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, xii.
Showing posts with label Child Kingdom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Child Kingdom. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Loving Children
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Look, Dad, Jesus is God!
Regularly, my children remind me that Jesus is God.
I ask them, "Who came to die to take away our sins?" And one of them will say, "God." And frequently, I find myself clarifying their answer, giving it an emendation with something like, "right, Jesus." But very quickly I usually get the counter clarification that "Jesus is God, Dad." And they're really very insistent about this. Some of this goes back to one of the first theological conversations I had with my son when I think he was about two years old. We had a brief Arian controversy break out at the dinner table regarding the divinity of Christ, but in the end, orthodoxy won out and my son embraced the Nicene formula.
But it's still striking. Yes, Jesus is God, but my instinct is to clarify that Jesus is a particular way that God has revealed Himself, that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity. I tend to want to nuance their answers a bit. But they insist: Jesus is God, Dad.
And I'm beginning to think that sometimes my son intentionally answers my questions this way. I think sometimes he deliberately answers my question which obviously begs for the response "Jesus" with the answer "God." e.g. Whose birthday is on Christmas, son? "God's." I haven't called him on it yet, but I'm deeply suspicious. Not that this causes me any deep trouble or concern, mind you. But this is the sort of pondering that us fathers get to do. What does it all mean?
I think some of it is a fascination with the idea of the Trinity. It's a reoccurring question especially when I read/say things about Jesus loving God or praying to God or obeying God. The kids apparently have little radars that go off to catch this oddity: "But Jesus is God!" they exclaim and laugh. This is absurd their laughing eyes seem to say. And we review the Trinity, we talk through the story of Christ's baptism, the transfiguration, the crucifixion, Pentecost, etc. And it's all good. They all agree that it must all be true, but they never really stop smiling about how funny it is. It never seems to get old, and we cover the same material again and again, and it's still funny. And they shake their heads at me smiling and laughing like it's one of the best jokes they've ever heard.
But I wonder if some of it is also just pure and simple excitement and wonder in the fact of Christmas, the surprise of the Incarnation. It's so easy to say that Jesus is God in a perfunctory way as if that's normal, as if that's just to be expected. Of course he's God, I almost feel myself saying sometimes as my daughter flashes her wide, brown eyes at me, reminding me. Don't forget the surprise, Dad.
And that's just it, God as man continues to be a present, a surprise, all wrapped and waiting to be opened. And we do open it, and Jesus reveals the fullness of God to us. But almost as quickly as we unwrap the Gift, there He is in the gospels teaching and healing and dying and rising again, all wrapped up, ready to be opened again. And again, and again, and again.
And then it doesn't seem quite so ridiculous for my children to remind me over and over and over. I think children frequently understand gifts a lot better than grown ups. They can spot a present all the way across the room. And every time I ask about Him, they want to rip off the paper and be surprised again. It's God! Look, Dad, Jesus is God!
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Cycle of Generations
In his new book The Four, Peter Leithart notes that the gospel of Matthew begins with a number of similarities to Genesis. Matthew begins with a "book of generations" which is one of the organizing principles of the book of Genesis (cf. 2:4, 5:1, etc.). He also notes some resemblances between Matthew's gospel and the epistle of James.
One similarity, which he doesn't explicitly mention (but which I suspect he's alluding to), is the fact that the word "generations" is used only five times in the NT, twice in Matthew and twice in James (once in Luke).
Both of the uses in James need some elucidating, but just on the surface, Js. 3:6 is one of the instances and James is warning particularly about the dangers of the tongue (see my earlier post). James says that the tongue is set among our members so that it can defile the whole body and set "on fire the whole course of nature." Literally, James says that it can set on fire the "cycle of generations." With the emphasis at the beginning of the chapter on "teachers," it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to see James addressing specifically generational challenges. He seems to be warning teachers in particular about the use of their tongues and the kind of impact it has on their students, children, congregations, etc. Their words have the potential to send their hearers to hell. Jesus has similar warnings for people who cause little ones to stumble.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Faith, Dads, and Children
Some thoughts on parenting over at Credenda (and hopefully some encouragement):
Faith, Dads, and Children
Monday, August 23, 2010
Gold receiving Gold
Guroian citing Chrysostom again:
"How do they become one flesh? As if she were gold receiving purest gold, the woman receives the man's seed with rich pleasure, and within her it is nourished, cherished, and refined. It is mingled with her own substance and she then returns it as a child!"
Portraits of the King
Vigen Guroian cites John Chrysostom on parenting:
"Let us bring them [our children] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Great will be the reward in store for us, for if artists who make statues and paint portraits of kings are held in high esteem, will not God bless ten thousand times more those who reveal and beautify His royal image (for man is the image of God)? When we teach our children to be good, to be gentle, to be forgiving (all these are attributes of God), to be generous, to love their fellow men, to regard this present age as nothing, we instill virtue in their souls, and reveal the image of God within them."
Monday, August 09, 2010
Defending Orphans as Christian Nurture
While I've been known to criticize Walter Brueggemann's exegesis in some cases, in his essay "Vulnerable Children, Divine Passion, and Human Obligation" in The Child in the Bible, he helpfully traces two Biblical mandates: the nurture and training of children in covenant homes and the defense and care of orphans.
And rather than pitting these responsibilities off one another, he concludes that these "are elements of the same agenda."
Specifically, "The ultimate content of family nurture in this tradition is in order that our own children in faith have front and center in their vision the protection of orphans, a concern that is defining for faith. Family nurture in this tradition cannot be a narrow little enterprise about purity and safety; rather, it concerns inculcation into the peculiar ethical patterns of our faith." And by "ethical patterns of our faith," Brueggemann means taking active steps in the defense of the fatherless.
And these two strains come together in the passover instructions for the Israelites which might be paraphrased as Brueggemann has it, When our children ask "in time to come what lentils and doorposts and stones all mean; the adult answer might properly be: 'We know, directly from God, that protection of vulnerable children outside our own family is a central requirement of faith.'"
Jesus and the Women
It's commonly noted that women are the faithful disciples in the gospels. Where the male disciples flee, deny, and abandon Jesus, the women continue to follow Him, even to the cross, and they are the first to go to His tomb on that first Easter.
Judith Gundry-Volf, in her essay "The Least and the Greatest" in The Child in Christian Thought, points out that given traditional roles of men and women in society, the prominence of women ministering to Jesus underlines Jesus' humility in the incarnation as childlike. Jesus Himself likens receiving the kingdom as receiving a child and says that those who receive children in His name receive Him and the One who sent Him. Thus, Jesus is a child, and perhaps predictably, He is abandoned by men and only the women continue to follow Him and care for Him in His greatest need.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Funerals, Feasting, and Little Ones
In Exodus 10, urged by his servants, Pharaoh offers to let Moses and Aaron and the men of Israel go worship Yahweh in the wilderness. However Moses says that old and young alike, sons and daughters, flocks and herds must go and keep the feast (10:9). Pharaoh insists that only the men go, but Moses goes out from the presence of Pharaoh and the Lord orders him to strike the land with the eighth plague of locusts.
There are a couple interesting points to make. First, the feast to Yahweh must include the children. Later in the law, the requirement specifically stipulates that it is all the males who must present themselves before the Lord three times a year (Ex. 23:17, Dt. 16:16), but it seems (based on this) like it was nevertheless the norm (or ideal) for their families and children to attend with them.
Second, there is an interesting contrast with the observance of Jacob's funeral in Genesis 50 where the text explicitly refers to "their little ones, their flocks, and their herds" that were "left in the land of Goshen." (Gen. 50:7-6). One immediate implication is that a feast to Yahweh is not a funeral. Families and children are ordinarily part of feasts but not necessary for funerals.
Clearly, little ones were part of the celebration of Passover (Ex. 13:8ff), which I believe is the feast that they are asking to celebrate. But this suggests implications for the celebration of the New Covenant passover meal, the Lord's Supper. Just on the surface, one implication would be that the presence or absence of children at the Lord's Supper is the difference between a feast and a funeral.
And, ironically for the Egyptians, it is the feast in which the children participate that becomes the means by which the Angel of Death strikes the firstborn sons of Egypt. When the children feast, the enemy is struck down.
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