The children were brought to Jesus because they found in Christ one who was ready to show kindness to the most insignificant and apparently worthless.--The disciples saw things differently, and rebuked those bringing the children, perhaps thinking that they were beneath their Master's dignity.--Christ, all compassion, welcomed the children readily, as representatives of just the kind of need he was willing and able to meet.--The lesson to learn is that all of us must receive the kingdom of heaven as little children if we are to enter it- no sense of entitlement, no claim of worth, no demonstration of merit, but-helpless and powerless in ourselves-receiving it as a gracious gift.