Isaiah 11:1-10 / Luke 10:21-24
The meanings of words change, not all the time, but more like over time. The meanings of some words changed so much that it may be surprising, and the present meanings are so different from the past.
"Awful" used to mean “worthy of awe” and in the long past it can be used as in “the awful majesty of God.” But that doesn't sound right nowadays. Today, it means something is bad or that someone looks terrible. It also means exceedingly great as in “an awful lot of money.”
Long ago, "naughty" means naught or nothing. Then it came to mean evil or immoral, then it came to mean mischievous, and then it came to have sexual connotations.
Likewise the word "innocence" may have other meanings besides naive or ignorant or immatured.
Also, the virtue of innocence is often trampled upon in a social culture where winning is everything and the only thing worth measuring.
But when Jesus talks about the innocence of children, He is talking about a person's knowledge of God, and it is expressed in a life of peace and love.
Knowledge of God brings about a capacity for peace and love, and a peaceful and loving person cannot hurt or harm anyone.
That is the kind of person we are called to be, because we already have the knowledge of God, we have that wisdom, we have that insight.
In this time of Advent, we go back to our innocence of heart so that we can see clearer and understand deeper.
We need to understand the true meaning of peace and love in this time of Advent so that we can truly have the peace and love that Jesus came to give us.