Faith of an Infant

The Lutheran church along with the Roman Catholic and many other mainline Christian denominations have the policy that the sacraments are for the living and not for the dead. The dead are in God’s hands and God’s grace will abound. While I do believe and hold this policy I would still baptize a stillborn infant because the sacrament would be for the parents who are living. But to get more specific, what is the faith of a infant? I hold the idea that we do no know what the faith of infant. Jesus says in Luke 18, “‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’” The word child is a strange word in Greek. There is τεκνα which like saying “child of God” or “child of Bob and Mary Beth Day.“ παιδι͗α is the greek word for an actual child or infant. Therefore, the last line of that verse could very well read, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little infant will never enter it.’” The faith of an infant, the faith of child is there and we therefore should not judge their faith just as we desire others not to judge our faith. There is beauty to the mystery of faith. It creates a relationship with God and reminds us all that we are created in the image of God.

The other night I watched an episode of Star Trek: Voyager where Nelix was killed in a freak accident. He was on an away mission when he was killed and was brought back to the ship. Seven of Nine heard that Nelix was killed and used some of her nano-probes to bring him back to life some 18 hours after he was killed. When Nelix awoke, he was shocked to find that he saw nothing in death. He saw nothing that his culture told him that he would see. Nelix was having a hard time dealing this but eventually finds that the reason he is so upset that he did not remember seeing anything was more because he was afraid of death. Not remembering did not necessarily mean nothing happened but rather it was the fear of not knowing what did happen and what will happen. Essentially Nelix lost his faith but it was Naomi, a small child born on Voyager, that kept the faith of Nelix going. The episode ended with Nelix unsure of his faith but Naomi still believed in what Nelix told her.

When our adult faith is challenged, it challenges our ability to believe in what we thought was true. But a child’s faith is nearly bullet proof. A child has a unique walk with God even before they were born. God knows a child before they were even a glimour in their parent’s eyes. Their faith is fresh while an adult’s faith is more mature and easily challenged. I believe this is why Jesus said “... whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child/infant will never enter it.’” While I do not believe I will be able to explain this idea in one small journal entry but I hope I, and others, will continue to explore.