Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

Your children are no angels. I don’t know if that is a sudden revelation to you or not. So many misconceptions of angels have come into common thought that we unconsciously talk about children being angels. When we show off a cute picture of our child or grandchild we say, “She’s my little angel.” That is wrong. When our children are behaving well, quietly playing peacefully with one another, we say that they are behaving like angels. That is wrong. That is not what angels do. And when one we dearly love dies, a child or even a parent or friend, people are often heard to say that the departed is now an angel, looking after those who are left behind and visiting them from time to time, even rescuing them from some danger. That is wrong, too.

 

The Bible, nowhere in any verse says that children are angels or that children behave like angels (or angels like children), or that any human being ever becomes an angel. However, there is one thing that Jesus says about people being like angels in the resurrection, that is misunderstood and twisted by people’s desperation and grief.

 

When the Sadducees (who didn’t even believe in the resurrection) wanted to set a trap for Jesus, they made up this ridiculous story about a woman whose husband died before giving her any children and that for reasons of inheritance a brother was to become a husband to her and provide children for her. But all of the brothers died without giving her an heir. So their disingenuous question was, “In the resurrection, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.” But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures or the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:28-30).

 

The Sadducees were trying to show that Jesus was a fool for teaching about the resurrection. One of the reasons they rejected the resurrection to eternal life was that the Old Testament Law about the responsibility of a childless dead man’s brother to marry the widow and provide an heir for her doesn’t make sense if they will all be resurrected. For who would be considered her husband, then? Jesus’ reply to them was not about what kind of beings people are when they die. He maintained that they are all still human beings and not angels, but they will be like the angels in respect their married state. There is no marriage in the resurrection other than the marriage of Christ to His Church.

 

We would rather have it like the Sadducees were trying to mockingly set it up. We want our earthly marriages to be eternal. When someone dies whose spouse has already departed, we find it comforting to think that they are now together again forever. Well, they are if they are both in Christ. Nothing will ever separate them in that case. But apart from their inclusion in the Church by which we are all in Christ, they will have no relationship with each other.

 

It is because we exalt the marriage relationship (and even the unmarried love relationship) greater than our relationship with Christ through the Church, we want to imagine that our earthly relationships that have been a help to us in the trials and tribulations of this life will continue eternally even when the trials and tribulations are all gone.

 

So, we don’t like it that we will be like the angels, neither marrying nor giving in marriage, in the resurrection, and yet we want our departed loved ones to be transformed into these divine beings, or for our children to have other sorts of angelic characteristics that only exist in our imagination.

 

Our Gospel reading for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, does not say very much about angels at all. But it does say a whole lot about our children. There are five things that I want to point out to you from today’s Gospel, remembering that Jesus has set a child in the midst of His disciples who were asking “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matthew 18:1).

 

The first thing that we see in Jesus’ example of the child is humility. That is one of the virtues we found highlighted in last week’s readings. Do you remember the other two? We see this child’s humility in that Jesus called the child and the child came. Whatever the child may have been doing at the time, he simply left it to come to Jesus. He recognized that what Jesus wanted him to do was more important than whatever else was occupying his mind.

 

Jesus took the child and put him in the midst of the disciples, and the child allowed this to happen. He was willing to be manipulated by Jesus, to be set where Jesus wanted him to be and to stay there until Jesus was done with him. This displays the humble obedience of a child who had no idea what Jesus was up to or what the reason was for him to stand still there in the middle of a bunch of grown ups.

 

Whether the child understood what Jesus said of him or not, the words of Christ prompt us to think about this child. To disciples asking “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (18:3-4).

 

It was the humility of the child that Jesus highlighted, and the evident lack of it in the disciples. They were the ones who needed to change. In the previous chapter, Matthew relates for us that Jesus took just three of the disciples up on the mountain where He was transfigured in their sight (17:1-2). What was so special about those three? And while that was happening the rest of the disciples were asked to cast out a demon from an afflicted boy and none of them were able to do it (17:16, 19). So they wondered, and at times argued about who was the greatest. They needed to be turned toward childlike humility.

 

The second thing to be pointed out is how Jesus promises that such humble children are exalted to the place of Christ Himself. “Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me” (18:5). The love which one shows to such a humble child who bears the name of Jesus, will be rewarded as if we were showing love directly to Jesus Himself. The “as if” I just inserted there is even a denigration of what Jesus actually said. He did not say “as if” we were receiving Jesus, but that we are receiving Jesus. “Whoever receives one such child in My

name receives Me.” This proclaims that Jesus lives in the humble child of faith. He keeps His baptismal promise that He has united Himself to them. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27).

 

This is the way that Jesus speaks about the final judgment day near the end of Matthew’s gospel. When he separates those destined from eternal life from those destined to eternal punishment, he tells those on his right that throughout their life they had fed Him when He was hungry and gave Him water when He was thirsty and welcomed Him when He was a stranger and clothed Him when He was naked. They visited Him when He was sick and in prison. “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger and welcome You, or naked and clothe You? And when did we see You sick or in prison and visit You?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it to Me’” (Matthew 25:37-40). These baptized children carrying the name of Jesus are exalted by Jesus identifying Himself with them, and receiving our expressions of love toward them as expressions of love toward Himself.

 

The next point raises the other hand and speaks not to those who receive such a child, but those who cause one of them to lose their baptismal faith. “but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (18:6-7). Such humble children of faith will be avenged with the vengeance of God.

 

Because the Lord Jesus has united Himself to these children through Baptism, whoever would cause that bond of faith to be broken will suffer the greatest of God’s wrath. This is a dire warning to parents first of all, to pastors and Sunday School teachers next, and to all teachers and caregivers inside and outside of the church.

 

It is such an honour to be entrusted with the care of children, but also such an awesome responsibility, such that there are severe consequences if we would jeopardize their faith through our teaching or our actions. If we cause even one of them to fall from the faith God will not hold us guiltless. The punishment is eternal torment in the fires of hell, a punishment so great that it was not even set in place for sinful human beings. It was prepared for the devil and his evil angels, but this hell fire will be the eternal suffering for any who cause the children of God to lose their salvation.

 

Not only does this impress upon us the importance of teaching and nurturing the faith of children, but it also provides us with some encouragement and comfort to know that God is on our side in this immense battle to keep our children in the covenant of their baptism. We do not fight alone against the ungodly and demonic societal pressures that our children face throughout their lives. The Lord fights for us and for our children. They shall be avenged.

 

This leads us to the next point in Jesus’ regard for the children of faith. And that is, that they are protected. “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven” (18:10). God’s holy angels protect His children. Your children are not angels, but they are protected by angels. Your children don’t behave like angels when they are quietly and peacefully playing with others, for angels fight. They are not at peace but at war. And in this fight they are not quiet but are proclaiming the Word of the Lord.

 

Angels are noisy and active. They are the holy spirits of God who rebuke the unclean and evil spirits—those demons led by the devil who blaspheme and curse the name of God and His Word. In this vocal warfare the angels praise God by declaring His victory over sin, death, and the devil through the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.

 

I don’t think that these are two separate actions by different classes of angels, but that all angels sing the praises of God, and this is the warfare against and defeat of the devil and his ilk. In the Epistle of Jude it says that Michael the archangel battled Satan by rebuking him (Jude 9). In the spiritual realm the angels constantly protect our children, surrounding them with their words of the victory of Jesus, while at all times they are before the face of God (Matthew 18:10) and with the same words are giving God the highest worship and praise.

 

This rounds out the points expressed in today’s Gospel reading about the humble, baptized children of faith who are exalted and avenged and protected. They, and those like them, are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And all of this is firmly built on the foundation of our readings’ final statement. “The Son of Man came to save the lost” (18:11). These children are saved. They are the object of Jesus’ saving work. He came for them because they were lost.

 

All of us, are conceived sinful, and guilty of sinful thoughts, attitudes and actions. From the first moment of our being we are directed only toward the gratification of our own needs at the expense of others. It is a dismissal of God and a neglect of those around us and it is evident even in the smallest of the children of mankind. But the eternal and only-begotten Son of God, became one of us in order to bring His holiness and righteousness to fallen humanity. He was the humble and obedient Child of God who went even to death upon the cross (Philippians 2), in order to deliver us from sin, death, and the devil.

 

The holy angels proclaimed this coming and we continue to join their anthems as we enter the heavenly places in our worship. Jesus, through His humiliation, suffering, and death, made Himself the least in the kingdom of heaven, so that He might exalt us and all His children, covering us with His righteousness through our baptism in His name.

 

The angels proclaimed His resurrection from the dead and they continue to guide and lead the Church in that proclamation of the Gospel throughout the world. We are privileged to join the angels as we care for our children, particularly speaking and teaching the Word of God to them, and by so doing, praising Jesus and the heavenly Father. “Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me.”

 

We are not angels. We do not become angels. Angels minister to us and with us. They are sent to comfort us in times of distress as they comforted Daniel when he could not bear the vision of coming events (Daniel 10). They protect us as the offspring of the Church threatened by the dragon full of rage (Revelation 12). And they are especially guardians of the littlest in the kingdom (Matthew 18:10), which is of great comfort to us both when we are concerned about our children and when we feel like the smallest ourselves.