I just started reading Pope Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth during this Lent season.

I’ll be honest — as a Protestant, I wasn’t sure what to expect when reading the writings of a recent Pope. But it has been a breath of fresh air. Benedict reads the Gospels the way you’d hope a theologian would: slowly, carefully, with deep reverence for what’s actually there. Whatever our differences, the man clearly loves Jesus.

I want to share a long passage so you grasp a great insight he shares:

Despite the resistance of the disciples, who wanted to protect him from this imposition, Jesus calls the children to himself, lays his hands on them, and blesses them. He explains this gesture with the words: “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mk 10:13-16).

In the previous chapter we find the scene where Jesus responds to the disciples’ dispute over rank by placing a child in their midst, taking it into his arms and saying: “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me” (Mk 9:33-37). Jesus identifies himself with the child — he himself has become small. As Son he does nothing of himself, but he acts wholly from the Father and for the Father.

The passage that follows a few verses later can also be understood on this basis. Here Jesus speaks no longer of children, but of “little ones,” and the term “little ones” designates believers, the company of the disciples of Jesus Christ (cf. Mk 9:42). In the faith they have found this true littleness that leads mankind into its truth.

This brings us back to the children’s Hosanna: in the light of Psalm 8, the praise of these children appears as an anticipation of the great outpouring of praise that his “little ones” will sing to him far beyond the present hour.

The early Church, then, was right to read this scene as an anticipation of what she does in her liturgy. Even in the earliest post-Easter liturgical text that we possess — the Didache (ca. 100) — before the distribution of the holy gifts the Hosanna appears, together with the Maranatha:

“Let his grace draw near, and let this present world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. Whoever is holy, let him approach; whoever is not, let him repent. Maranatha. Amen” (10, 6).

— Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus identifies himself with the child. He himself has become small.

That line is sticking with me. We spend so much energy trying to be significant — trying to matter, to build, to be taken seriously. And here is God in the flesh, placing a child in the center of the room and saying: this. This is what it looks like to receive the kingdom.

Not the disciples arguing about rank. The child.

There’s something so important in this as we look forward to Holy Week. The one who became small is about to become smaller still — handed over, stripped, lifted up on a cross outside the city. And somehow that descent is the thing that saves us.

Whoever does not receive the kingdom like a child shall not enter it.

I don’t think that means naivety. I think it means dependence. The child doesn’t earn his place at the table. He’s carried to it.