Children were brought to Jesus
that he might lay his hands on them and pray.
Children were precious in the eyes of God and therefore in the heart of Jesus as well. He wanted to welcome them and bless them whether or not they had any immediate need, such as an illness or demonic possession. It was simply good that they existed, which he celebrated by being near them. Nothing 'productive' needed to happen for this time he spent to be valuable. No doubt having this encounter with Jesus at the beginning of the lives would lead them to subsequent blessings in an otherwise uncertain future. Maybe their parents had such blessings in mind when they brought them to him. But Jesus and the children enjoyed something deeper than the future benefits he might provide. They enjoyed relationship. Any other blessings they might receive in the future were secondary to the beginning to be with Jesus, to knowing him and to be known by him.
The disciples rebuked them
The disciples represented the worldly view of the situation. It was not necessarily that they despised children so much as that they thought Jesus had other more important, more productive things to do with his time. Children could not apparently yield any utilitarian value for bringing about the Kingdom of God. And these children didn't seem to be in any kind of dire need. The disciples didn't seem to conceive of the value of rest, in which people simply enjoyed one another's presence. Even if they had most probably experienced such time themselves with Jesus they did not yet understand that it was worth valuing and helping to facilitate for others as well, rather than trying to prevent and block it as they in fact did.
Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them;
for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.
The disciples were worried that Jesus didn't have time for these children, that they were a distraction from the project of establishing the Kingdom on earth. But Jesus demonstrated that his time with them was actually already an experience of the Kingdom then and there, a reality yet to come, but momentarily revealed.
Maybe we can learn something from these disciples and from these children. We often find ourselves at the mercy of the urgent, chained to the need to be productive, under the tyranny of all the many apparently necessary tasks in our lives. Are we able to slow down and just give Jesus some quality time? More to it, can we help him to have such time with others? Do we recognize how good it is for him to be in relationship even with very young children, even when there is no obvious superficial difference that results from it? Or are our concerns for others more about the apparent exigencies of their lives? We should remember that the things that seem necessary in the light of tomorrow are not necessarily those that matter most in the light of eternity. Since we can experience the light of eternity in the presence of Jesus that would seem to be, not only our goal, but also the proper place to begin.
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