This is not the first time Jesus uses the children as a point of reference. In Lk. 17:3 we read: anyone who does not welcome the reign of God like a child will never enter it. It is clearly not a matter of being childish, but of being childlike. What is so special about children that makes this revealed to them and not to the learned?

Children have an openness to trust and a keen way of grasping what we say and, more importantly, of grasping what we are. Children know their parents, know their friends, more than they know about them. They do not study their parents or friends, they are keenly perceptive about what the lives of their parents or friends convey to them.

In Jn. 17: 13 Jesus tells us: eternal life consists in this, to know you, Father, and to know the one you sent. To know you is different from knowing about you. The disciples first response to Jesus’ question who do people say that the Son of Man is? [Mt. 16: 13] reveals what they knew about Jesus. Knowing about another is an intellectual process, while knowing another is more of an existential process. It is the way we know our parents and friends without studying them, but by living with them and interacting with them.

Pascal wrote that the heart has reasons reason knows not of. We know others through heart reasons and this is how Jesus challenges us to know him in a childlike way. Christology helps us to know about Jesus. Christianity helps us to know Jesus. Christology is for the experts. Christianity is for all, perhaps especially for those with childlike receptivity.