although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike.
The Lord of heaven and earth reveals great things to the childlike. But we typically insist on identities as sophisticated adults. Children's good natured naivety seems nice but impractical. We look upon children at their best with a wistful gaze and think, 'if only.' But we believe that if we ourselves became like them the cold and harsh real world would quickly run us down and disillusion us again.
Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (see Matthew 18:3).
Becoming like little children is not optional. There is a real sense in which we need to surrender our need to be self-directed and self-protective in order to receive the revelation of the truth that Jesus wants to give us, which is the revelation of God the Father. It is not a revelation that a disinterested agent can read about in the Catholic Encyclopedia. It is a revelation that a childlike heart can receive by becoming a child of the Father. It is an experiential reality that only a child can know.
It is true that we have all been hurt by the world in one way or another. There is no one whose trust in others hasn't been been broken at times. To become childlike seems like a dangerous luxury that we cannot allow. But the Lord is not asking us to be credulous toward the world. He is asking us to be childlike in relation to himself, to trust him, to believe him, to follow him, to receive our identity and our self-worth from him. For hearts like ours which have been hurt this is no mean feat. Fortunately it is a process which God himself initiates, which he himself is willing to sustain at every step.
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (see John 3:3).
The new birth we receive in baptism is the basis of a new identity, a new creation, filled with the Spirit, able to cry out "Abba! Father!" (see Romans 8:15). Our old identity was like "the stump of Jesse". At one point it seemed poised to grow into a great tree, but the world seemed to take away those possibilities from it, leaving only the stump. But Jesus, in assuming our humanity, renewed the potential for the whole stump, making what seemed lifeless blossom forth once more.
A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
and from his roots a bud shall blossom.
In his incarnation as a human child Jesus restored for us the possibility that we could once more be the children of God that we were always intended to be. With the Spirit of the Lord filling us with his gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge and fear of the Lord, we need not revert to depending on ourselves, on acting as adults out of fear of man or circumstance. Since everything we truly need is provided for us by our Father we become free to follow him in ways that the world might regard as naive, toward goals which it would insist are impractical. Even in our own human judgment the peace God desires for the world might seem unattainable but the Spirit within us assures us it can be real.
The baby shall play by the cobra’s den,
and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.
There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD,
as water covers the sea.
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