Christ’s Care for Infants

“Who is like Yahweh our God, The One who sits on high, The One who brings Himself low to see The things in heaven and on the earth?”

Psalm 113:5-6 LSB

The greater the love, the greater the grief. The greater the joy, the greater the sorrow. The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away.

Children are a gift. And when they are taken, they remain a gift to us — both in our memories and in our expectation of seeing them again, or for the first time. Every child is a joy and heritage, no matter who short his or her life.

The greater the gift given, the greater the sorrow when that gift is taken away.

One of my favourite theologians, Richard Sibbes, has written, “He who stumbles at the low stooping of God carries himself very unkindly towards Him.” Let no one stumble at our God’s low stooping. Let no one look down on the grief of others, for God does not.

What comfort do we have above this, that our God stoops so low? Let no one stumble over God’s low stooping.

The same chubby hands that Mary and Joseph squeezed in the Bethlehem manger, were nailed to the cross at Jerusalem. The same chubby feet that toddled down the dusty roads of Bethlehem, walked out of Nazareth, into Jerusalem, were pierced for our transgression there, have walked out of the tomb, and now He stands in victory at the right hand of the Father on high, and right now He prays for you in your sorrows and griefs.

From the spark of conception, He was Savior. From the womb, He was Savior. From His infancy, He was Savior. He took on these things to save, and not one of these stages of full humanity is wasted.

It was fitting that God, in bringing many sons to glory, make the founder and perfecter of their faith and salvation perfect through suffering.

It was fitting that He, since the children partake in flesh and blood, partook in the same, that He might render powerless the devil who had the power of death, and so taste death for them.

Hebrews 2 paraphrase

It is the sweetness of His tender heart to save the smallest as well as the worst, the most lowly as well as the most wicked. He who saved the pagan Abraham, the murderer and adulterer David, the drunkard Noah, and the youthful and blameless Abel, how much more will He save those little ones lost in the dawn of life?

Hear how gentle His voice in calling His little lambs! How fierce His tone of protection!

“Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Matthew 19:14 LSB

If He saves those like the littlest, most humble and trusting child, how much more will He save the little ones themselves? If God be glorified in the little, humble faith of his fully grown disciples (Matthew 18), how much more if He glorified in the salvation of these little ones who do not know their right hand from their left? Will these children, who run into the open arms of their parents, not run to the open arms of Jesus?

May we constantly be speaking the Name of Christ to them that if God take them so early in their life, they may recognize the Name of Jesus as the Name that was so oft’ on the lips of their father and mother, brother and sister, grandfather and grandmother, and the family of the saints in God!

To us, the taking away is a sorrow, because the gift is so great. For those we have lost, though, we trust it is only gain. For they have departed the vapor that is this life to be with Christ. That is far better.