The death of Andrew's son Charlie

My son Charlie died one hour after his birth. He was born at 21 weeks old. This is a sermon my friend wrote which was read at the funeral for Charlie. Charlie is in heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord had been travelling and preaching in Judea and Galilee. Jesus had healed the sick and fed the 5,000 and then another 4,000. But, He knew the crowd’s hearts, that they were following Him out of a desire to fill their bellies or to add to their greed.

It fills Jesus’s heart with joy when someone comes to Him out of a love for Him, not for what they can get. He knew that the children were filled with only love for Him and not a desire for anything else. As the Scripture verse says, the parents brought the children to Him for a blessing. These children were spoken about as an example to man as to how they should believe in Jesus. Unless a man comes to Jesus as these little children they cannot see the Kingdom of God.

Jesus desires that a believer surrenders his life to Him in a childlike trusting way. Children express their love in a innocent 100% fashion. Children give themselves to someone else, completely. Children have faith in those they trust.

These verses are so important that they appear in three of the Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke. John is the only one where the account of Christ and the children does not appear.

Jesus loves us all. It must have warmed His heart to have these children come to Him. Remember, Jesus was and is Jehovah of the Old Testament and had to put Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. How our Father in Heaven must have cried at his children’s rebellion. He loves us so much that He sent His Son to die on the cross for us. Remember, in times of grief, the Father is not lacking in understanding of our grief. His Son died and was separated from Him.

The love that a child gives is unconditional and trusting. Abraham heard God telling him to leave Ur of the Chaldees and go unto a new place that God would show him. Abraham was even willing to trust God when God commanded him to take Isaac, his only son, and to sacrifice him. We need as Christians to have the same standard of obedience and willingness to humble ourselves to God. God does not command us to sacrifice our sons, since he has already allowed His Son, Jesus to die on our behalf. But we must be obedient to His Son, Jesus, even if it means poverty or death.

Isaac asked his father, “Where is the lamb for the offering?”

Abraham answered, “God will provide.”

We need the same child-like faith in God’s provision for our lives. Noah obeyed God to build a huge ship where there was no rain. Noah did not ask, “why God?” But instead said “yes God, what are your instructions?” Noah must have looked silly to his neighbours when it did not rain for a long time.

Jesus’s disciples, who had rebuked the parents for bringing children to Him, were greatly used by the Lord to change the world for us. None of the eleven remaining with Jesus after His resurrection, had a minute of formal training of any kind but God used them to set the world on its head. Men say it was the American Revolution which revolutionized our world. But I say it’s the Gospel of Jesus Christ that has done that and nothing any godless man could ever do. But God chose men like John, James, Peter, and Andrew, who had only fished for fish on the Sea of Galilee because they had a childlike obedience to Christ. They turned the world upside down. Even Paul had no college education as we know it today. He had childlike faith in Christ, obedience unto poverty, imprisonment and death for Christ.

I grew up as a Salvationist, that is a person who attends the Salvation Army. Every Sunday, at West Toronto Corps, I saw the words from Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God” hanging on the wall. I did not know then what it meant but with God’s comforting presence, even in the death of little Charlie, life will go on and we have the promise of eternal life because Jesus Christ.

Another person, who chose to obey God and have childlike faith was Mary, our Lord’s mother. Mary could have told God that He was crazy. But instead Mary accepted God’s great privilege for her. Her heart must have been happy thinking how Jesus was taking our sins on Himself on His cross, but also she could not help being a mother. Seeing her Son die such a horrible death, and being called the mother of a “criminal”, and experiencing the shame people placed upon her. But her joy was overwhelming when she heard that her son Jesus, her Lord and Saviour, had risen.

Mary must have pondered in her heart the things that Simeon had said to her in the temple when she had brought Jesus there to be dedicated as a child. Simeon told her that “her heart would be pierced.” God understood what Mary was going through when she lost her Son, and God understands what mother’s go through when they lose someone special. Jesus is not only God but he is also human and he can feel what we are going through. Because of his understanding of our pain we can go to him in our time of need. If you don’t know Christ, now is the time to come to Him. What you have to do is that you must confess to Christ in prayer, “Lord Jesus I am a sinner, I am sorry for my sins, and I need you in my heart to make things right. Please Lord Jesus come into my heart and be my Lord and Saviour and help me to live a Godly life. Thank you Lord Jesus for dying on the cross for me and being my Saviour.” Amen.