Reason says. . .

A few months ago many of us were gathered in a church somewhere while a finger dusted with ash traced a cross on the foreheads of those who came forward.  The words were shocking enough for an adult to hear, Remember, O man, that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.  But there will be moms and dads bringing small children with curious faces and infants so seemingly innocent to get the same odd anointing.   In the cold reality of reason, this all seems to be an empty gesture for the children and babies carried up in loving arms.  Reason says these are innocents who have no guilt to carry, no shame to hide, and no sins to confess.  But that is the problem.  We were born into this sin that does not seem to be apparent on the smiling and joyful faces of children and babies.  They belong there because of what choice was made not by them but for them when, in Eden, we were all one in Adam.  If they do not belong there, then none of us do.

The same unthinkable reason that brought infants and small children to the rail for ashes is what brings them to baptismal water.  Need.  Whether that need is expressed in formal words and sentences or whether it is attested to by faithful parents who know what is on the faces of their children as well as what it means to be born into sin, need compels us.  No one can reason themselves into a baby being brought to water meant for sinners who have some guilt to confess, some shame to admit, and some sin to own.  Reason says the child is innocent until they reach some age of accountability, some awareness of right and wrong, some culpability of will and desire.  But infants and children are also born into a world of death, with a will compromised by the inclination to evil, and in their own helpless state to deliver themselves from all of this or even part of it.  

Reason tells us that the resurrection is the hope of those near death and not the baby in the arms of mom or the children carried by their dads.  After all, they have their own lives ahead, full lives with chapters waiting to be written.  That is the illusion.  Reason usually deals with black and white, the clear and the concrete.  In this case reason is wrong.  It clings to a dream while the reality is marked in death upon the flesh even of a child.  We all need what the promise of Easter offers.  We cannot predict when death will come and we dare not presume that the seemingly innocent faces of children are immune from it.  If we come to the empty tomb both out of need and of desire, the infants and children have the same need even as we wait to hear from their lips the words of desire and faith.