For those privileged to be born in Christian homes, good theology begins in the nursery, where it is communicated–one suspects–most often in song. What better introduction to truth as a whole and in all its aspects than this:
Jesus loves me. This I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong;
They are weak but He is strong.
There we have it–“Truth” for all, Jews and Greeks. For the Jews it is faithful Relationship, love in all its orbs, reason to say “Amen,” For the Greeks it is sober Reality swaddled in propositions, freely knowable and told in the Bible. Then the Word became flesh, and Love was embodied for all to see and hear and touch–but also to trust and obey and follow. And night after night this is what we hear as we fall off to sleep:
Little ones to Him belong;
They are weak but He is strong.
They comfort us, these words, when the parents put us down and return to their own bed. When the rain falls and the thunder rolls and lightning flashes across the sky. When we grow older and start to school, and when we finish school and grow up and marry and have little ones of our own. They comfort us still, these words, even then:
Little ones to Him belong;
They are weak but He is strong.
And still we grow older and still the years go by. Our little ones grow up, and they have little ones too, and they sing the song to them. And we all listen to the words, and we all grow older, and Jesus remains the same. That is good, very good, because the song tells the truth about Jesus (“Jesus loves me” and “he is strong”), and it tells the truth about us (we are weak, we are loved by Jesus, and we belong to Him).
What a reassuring benediction!
What good theology
At any age.
Thanks be to God!