“…whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.”
Why is this? Why is it that “…the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these,” children Jesus meets in our Gospel?
The Kingdom is ultimately a gift of our Heavenly Father, the Father rejected by our first parents when they were not children, but friends of God. They broke that friendship, and in the fullness of time the Father sent His Son that we might receive “…a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…” (Romans 8:15-17). We cannot enter the Kingdom of God, we cannot come to possess our inheritance, if we are not Children of God in imitation of Christ. What is it to be a child of God in imitation of Christ? He says, “…learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart…” (Matthew 11:29), and “…a contrite, humbled heart, O God, you will not scorn,” (Psalm 51:19). Pride led to the Fall, but the child-like, “…the meek…will inherit the land,” (Matthew 5:5).