and a Little Child Shall Lead Them

We end the first week of Advent by looking to the faith and wonder of a child.

There is a fictionalized account of Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt with toddler Jesus that my family often reads at Christmas. It is a short story entitled, Dance in the Desert, by Madeleine L’Engle. In it, L’Engle describes a scene where wild desert animals approach the caravan’s circle. The adults in the camp stand ready to defend, but Mary gently says, “wait.” As the title of the book indicates, the wild animals of the desert and toddler Jesus dance.

I believe L’Engle was thinking of Isaiah’s prophecy in chapter 11 when she wrote this story:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
    and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
    and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze;
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
    and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
9 They shall not hurt or destroy
    in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.
(Isaiah 11:1-9)

After the familiar Messianic verses about a branch shooting out from Jesse’s line, there is a passage that describes previously savage and gentle animals resting together in peace. It is a symbol of the enormity of the Messiah’s impact, not only on the peace of humans, but of the natural world. In the middle it says, “and a little child shall lead them.”

This is no Pied Piper situation, no animal circus on parade. This is a symbol of innocence and trust. A foreshadowing of restoration. Had Adam and Eve’s children been born in the Garden of Eden, they too would have been able to explore and play among the animals without any fear or concern.

Any young child today is full of wonder and trust not because there aren’t scary things in the world, but because they don’t know about sin and evil, danger and difficulty. And more to the point—they rely on their grownups to provide all they need. But there is a time coming, Jesus promises, when we will all be like children again: without fear, and fully surrounded by God’s loving and providing presence.

When adult Jesus taught about the Kingdom of Heaven in parables and stories, he wasn’t doing it to be obtuse or confuse. He was actually fulfilling the prophecy of Psalm 78:1-2 (as Matthew reminds us in 13:25):

“I will open my mouth in parables;
    I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”

Jesus spoke in parables because wanted His listeners to respond more like children. John Pavlovitz writes about this in Week 2 of his Advent devotional, Low:

“The older we get, the more wonder-deprived we tend to become. I think the Jesus who comes low understood this, which is why his parables inserted miracles into the mundane. The kingdom of God was treasure hidden in a field; it was a seed falling into good soil; it was yeast working quietly through the dough; it was sparrows and wildflowers and pearls. It would have been impossible for his listeners to experience their ordinary days the same way after hearing him. I imagine that’s a bit of what he meant when he talked about embracing the greater life by becoming a child.”

I have the luxury of working with young children and babies in an environment that enriches this type of wonder. Have you ever gotten down on the ground next to a toddler, to be able to see things as they do? This altered vantage point helps us see ordinary things differently.

Pavlovitz invites us to enter this stance and seek God there—especially in this season of waiting we call Advent.

He goes on to say in Week 3:

“. . . I was talking to my son about the approaching Christmas season, and he said, ‘I really like the waiting. It’s fun.’ He described the time leading up to the holidays as his favorite part: the anticipation and the excitement, the electricity of looking forward to something and of counting down the days. For him, it’s far more enjoyable than the relative letdown of the day itself.”

I think I resonate a lot with that little kid. From a young age (even before I could articulate it) the mystery and wonder of Advent has delighted me. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to see how much I need the heart of Advent for the rest of my life. For life is full of waiting, and those in-between times can often be more challenging than the challenges themselves.

But Advent gives us an amazing hindsight that spans the centuries. We will never have to wait 400 years like the people of Israel did. But we can look at the silent gap between Malachi’s end Matthew’s beginning and reorient our hearts as we wait.

Pavlovitz finishes his reflection on the 400 years between the Old Testament and New Testament saying,

“. . . What is simply the turn of a page to us represents several generations of painful waiting, of awkward silence, of unresolved questions—which is why the birth story of Jesus is the perfect one to bridge those two parts of the story. It is a wonderful end to a time of anxious waiting. If we cultivate a bit of faith, that in-between time, even in difficult days, can be a hopeful space for us, a place where we can welcome transformation even with all the present unknowns.

Rather than wanting the time to pass quickly, we can actually enjoy it because we know we are being renovated.

This season may find you in painful waiting—in that sometimes frustrating before. One of the truths you can rest in is that, as with the child in Mary’s womb and the groaning world enduring those long months, there is always change taking place, always new life about to spring forth.”

The perfect trust and wonder of a young child. How ironic and wonderful that the millennia of waiting for a Messiah was fulfilled by the birth of such a child. 

 The Prince of Peace who made Himself low, for us. To bring new life. And to show us the way to everlasting peace.