By Jessica Brodie
There’s something about the exuberance of kids that makes me smile.
This weekend, I staffed a booth for my newspaper’s publishing company at our local library’s Read Freely Fest, its first (hopefully first of many!) large-scale book festival for the Columbia, South Carolina, area. Because we’re a faith-based press, we had all these fun little Christian giveaways for people, including a huge basket of miniature squishy Jesus figures.
Those mini Jesuses were a hit. We had people come up and giggle, tentatively touch them, maybe ask if these were for the taking.
“Of course! Take one!” we insisted. “Everyone needs a little Jesus.” (Pun intended, naturally.)
But the best were the kids. They’d come up grinning and grab one or several. Most of the kids didn’t even care about the big basket of candy next to them. They just wanted their mini Jesus.
“Ha, it’s Jesus! I want a Jesus for my room!” one kid said.
“Can I get one for my stepbrother?” another asked.
One kid was so serious. His eyes locked in, and he took a couple. Then he spotted the button pins, which had faith sayings on them, such as “Love like Jesus,” “Believe,” and “Love Others.”
His eyes rounded.
“I need to take so many of these,” he informed me, barely glancing at me as he filled his palms. “I’m going to wear them all over my shirt.”
He brought his friends back an hour later, and they, too, took their fill.
I don’t know how many books we sold at the festival. But I can tell you one thing: By the time we left, that giant basket of miniature squishy Jesus figures was almost empty, and so were a good number of the pins.
And a whole bunch of people brought home a token reminder of the most important truth in the entirety of the world: Jesus.
Jesus is.
Jesus loves.
Jesus saves.
Sometimes, we humans get so complicated with our evangelism. We think we need to spin artful words that wow the world, or preach sermons so theologically on-point people can’t possibly miss the message.
But the truth is that the life-saving message of Jesus is simple and pure, so simple even the littlest of little ones can understand.
God loves us so much that he sent his son, Jesus, to sacrifice himself and show us the way to heaven. And we who repent and believe can have eternal life forever because of him.
In Mark 10:15, Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (ESV).
Think about that for a moment. God wants us to be like children—trusting, innocent, exuberant, all-in—when it comes to embracing the Good News. He wants us to grab on with both hands, grinning and joyful, eager to accept the love he has for each one of us.
This week, think about that. How can you push aside the worries of life and seize with abandon what God promises to each of us? How can you joyfully grab onto that freedom and hope?
Let’s try our best to be like children, loving God and each other with all we have and all we are, forevermore.
Amen.
~
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