Among the most tender scenes of the World Cup is when players take the field, or walk onto the pitch, holding hands of children. Often a youngster is also chosen to lead the referees and deliver the game ball. It is a tradition that goes back a quarter century when the FIFA World Cup collaborated with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to raise awareness of children’s rights and their protection worldwide. UNICEF was founded eighty years ago, shortly after World War II, to provide humanitarian aid, food, health care, and other services to help kids survive, and later thrive, while adults were burying their dead, mourning their losses, and rebuilding their communities. Referred to as player escorts or match mascots, the children are a visible symbol of our universal commitment to the future.

The processions continue decades later for more practical reasons: it is a sign of good sportsmanship, the children are a deterrent to bad behavior by fans when things don’t go their team’s way, their presence encourages players to be good role models, their innocence is a sign of hope for a better world, and holding the hand of a child beckons adults to reminisce about our own childhood when we looked up to heroes and viewed the vast world with great dreams and unlimited imagination. The intergenerational march reminds me of the passage in Isaiah (Chapter 11, verse 6) that says, “a child shall lead them.”  We allow children to guide us when we recall what it was like to be a child and consider what it means to be a child of God. The child escorts jog our minds to realize that our chief task is to protect them and teach them well. Despite competition, opposition, favored nations, homeland preferences, misunderstandings, and wars, we are all children of earth, and we can celebrate that indisputable unity even in our diverse cultures, languages, nationalities, customs, histories, and viewpoints.   

There is another famous scriptural passage from Proverbs (Chapter 22, verse 6) that states, ”Train up children in the way they should go and, even when they grow old, they will not swerve from it.”  It, too, is a divinely inspired prompt for us to think before we speak or act and realize that youthful souls are watching and imitating. If, before we open our mouths, we ask, “How is what I’m saying here impacting the children,” if, before we leap into action, we contemplate, “How is what I’m doing in this moment influencing the kids,” if, before we make important decisions, we reflect upon, “How is what I’m choosing in this situation teaching the next generation,” we will certainly speak, act, and choose well.

The World Cup has been an incredible blessing to our country’s semi quincentennial celebrations. Even for those of us who know very little about soccer, it is an experience of goodwill, hospitality, delightful visitors, amazing fans, and international enlightenment. Guests have lifted up and spread word of our many blessings. Let’s not discount the role of children. As we recall the birth of our nation and its coming-of-age stories, it’s almost as if we can reach out and hold the hand of a forebearer hero and, at the same time, take the hand of a child and become frozen in time with our own youthful hopes and dreams. In The Gospel of Matthew (Chapter 11, verse 25), Jesus says, “What has been hidden from the learned and the clever has been revealed to the merest children.” As we learn about time within a soccer match: normal time, full time, stoppage time, additional time, extra time…let’s not forget children’s time, a time of which we never want to let go. If we allow a child to lead, we will arrive at places God wants to take us; for we will always be His children.