All the Little Children

The face of God is in the child.

Children are closest to the heart of heaven. Their laughter, their trust, their fragility, and their joy reveal something of the Divine. We say this in sermons, in songs, in scripture. We paint it in nurseries and whisper it in baby dedications. And when we say it, we smile—because we know it’s true.

Babies are born with nothing but love. They are born with need, yes—but not malice. They cry, but they don’t hate. Hate is taught. Cruelty is learned. But love? Love is native to the newborn. Love is the first language of the body before it learns a single word.

For everyone.

If you are Christian and believe Jesus is the Messiah— Perhaps especially if you’re still waiting for a messiah to come— I invite you to pause here, with me, and imagine:

Imagine the Messiah as a baby.

Although we don’t know much about his childhood, Christians have a detailed accounting of Jesus’s birth.

No one turned him away. He was born exactly where he was meant to be— the smallest among us, in the lowest place. Imagine calling that unworthy. Imagine seeing the quiet arrival of love and calling it insignificant.

He was also born to a cruel world— a world where power was permitted to overreach. A world where a king’s fear was tended to more gently than a child’s cry. A world where a king would rather kill babies than lose control.

Herod did what tyrants do: He sent soldiers. Not to a battlefield. To homes. To nurseries. To cradles.

He ordered the slaughter of every baby boy under two years old. Every single one. Just to appease the mirror on his wall. The one that told him power was slipping. That a child could unseat him.

Herod— A man who couldn’t imagine a world that wasn’t about him, so he tried to kill the future before it could grow.

And we know Mary and Joseph fled to protect the infant named Jesus. Because when power turns violent, parents cradle divinity in shaking arms— and do whatever it takes.

Now imagine Herod today— A ruler so afraid of resistance, so consumed by control, that he orders the deaths of children. Not metaphorically. Literally.

He signs off on airstrikes. He excuses starvation. He justifies siege. He rips babies from their mothers’ arms— children who later die on concrete floors in the hands of his soldiers.

Imagine hunting down what you were meant to protect.

And I look at Palestine. I look at the children. I look at the mothers and fathers, the protectors, the mourners, the ones fleeing, the ones staying, the ones choosing love even under ash—

And I see Mary. I see Joseph. I see Jesus.

Because the Bible says the face of God is in the child. Because the story of God begins, again and again, not with the sting of revenge— but the cry of a baby.

So I hold the children in my heart. All of them. The ones in Rafah. The ones in shelters. The ones wanting their mommies. The ones under rubble. The ones still laughing, somehow. The ones still drawing stars.

And I ask myself at what point does a strong man need to hurt a baby to feel big?And the answer returns, a song in my heart: 

Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world.

That’s not just a song.
It’s a warning.