Key events in today’s reading:

• Peter Declares That Jesus is the Messiah (Matthew 16:13-20)
• Jesus Predicts His Death (Matthew 16:21-28)
• The Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-13)
• The Rich and the Kingdom of God (Matthew 16-30)
• The Triumphal Entry (Matthew 21:1-11)
• The Greatest Commandment (Matthew 22:34-40)
• Jesus Talks About the End Times (Matthew 24)
• The Last Supper (Matthew 26:17-30)

Verse that stood out: “Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” – (Matthew 18:4).

When my brother and I were children, we’d often pass the time by playing that classic childhood game hot or cold. While there are probably a thousand variations of this game, we’d play by sending one of us into another room to hide a small object like a penny or small toy. Once the object was safely hidden, we’d call the other into the room to commence the searching. As the searcher made his way around the room, the hider would call clues in the form of temperature readings.

“Warm . . . Warmer . . . Cooler . . . Cooler . . . Warmer”

The searcher would adjust the pattern of his searching until “warm” became “warmer” and eventually turned into “hot”.

Actually, the way Erick and I played, cool . . . cooler . . . and cold turned into things like ice cold, Antarctic cold, you’re freezing your rear-end off cold, and a few other descriptions not appropriate for a pastor’s blog post. Warm . . . warmer . . . hot would eventually turn into something like – You’re scorching hot. You’re hot as hot lava. You’re surface of the sun hot!

Nothing delighted us more than to have hidden the object so well that even when the other was lava pit hot, they still didn’t see it!

Yesterday, we noted that one of Jesus’ favorite images of the kingdom of God is that of a kingdom that’s hidden. It’s a treasure buried in a field, a seed covered up in the ground, a bit of yeast invisible in the dough. At first glance, the hiddenness of the kingdom might lead some of us to believe that God doesn’t want us to find it, but nothing could be further from the truth. In all of Jesus’ teaching, the kingdom of God is there, right in front of us, if only we have eyes to see.

Jesus gives us hints along the way as to where the kingdom can be found. In today’s reading he pulls a child close to his side and says if you want to be great in this kingdom, you need to be like this child. If he’d left it there, we could fill in all sorts of adjectives that suit us well. We need to be innocent like children, energetic like children, open to learning new things like children. Jesus doesn’t leave us to fill in our own adjective. He makes it plain by saying, “Whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

In a world where we are all trying to gain as much status and power as possible, Jesus hints that the kingdom is found in the opposite direction.

For tomorrow:

• Cover to Cover: Matthew 26:30-Mark 8:19
• Key Passage: Mark 3:31-4:20
• Verse of the Day: Mark 3:34-35