Today’s Scripture
Psalm 111 Isaiah
63:7-9 Galatians 4:4-7
Matthew
2:13-15, 19-23
Adopted. It made the
news this past week about a young man who, as an infant was adopted. He found out his birth-mother was a fellow
worker at a Home Depot store. In the interviews with mother and son both
expressed appreciation for his adopted parents, how they were his parents and
had raised him as one would want.
We recently
have engaged in assisting some adoptions here at Immanuel. It is through the citizenship courses we host
as immigrants adopt the United States
as their country, and we adopt them as full-fledged citizens of the United States. They have made this their homeland. Adoption, I have a nephew whose middle name
is “Joseph” because through adoption, he was brought from a country and
environment that did not hold the promise and hope that he enjoys now.
In Paul’s
letter to the Galatians, he writes to us that we are God’s sons. Now each one here was born
due to a man and woman. Whether
we know our birth parents or not, we are children of the flesh. We are people. God is God.
God is Spirit. How can we be
God’s sons? Why are we God’s sons?
Read Psalm
111 (assigned for today). In it we read
all that God has done for us from creation to our daily needs to the
“redemption” for his people. Remember
this, that everything on earth and in heaven God wants you to have.
Isaiah
writes telling us the “kindness of the Lord for all he has done for us. In verse 8 he
states, “Surely they are my people.” God
claims you as his people.
Our Gospel
reading tells a little about adoption.
Joseph adopted Jesus as his son here on earth. Joseph took this adoption seriously as we see
the extent that he followed God’s commands (given through angels to Joseph) to
protect Mary and the baby Jesus. As we
read this account, we can see it must have been Joseph’s intent to return to Bethlehem, or at least to Judea,
where Jesus was born. Jesus of Bethlehem
should be his name. Instead, Joseph
returns to Nazareth
to make his living and raise his family.
It is not Jesus of Bethlehem but Jesus of Nazareth, a name that now follows
him to the cross and throughout the New Testament.
The opening
words of the reading from Galatians, “When the time had fully come...” [v. 4]. As with all
else in this world and in the history of the world, it is according to God’s
calendar, his timing that he comes down from heaven and becomes man, born of
woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those under the law. The reason for Jesus’ birth as we celebrate
it even today, is to buy each person back from slavery
into sin to be God’s dear child. And as
his dear child, as a son, you receive not just the joys of living in the
master’s house (this earth) but also as a son you receive the inheritance, all
of his heavenly kingdom.
In baptism
you are marked as God’s dear child. He
has given you the privilege to call him your father. You were made to be in his image and he will
restore you at the final resurrection to be in that image forever.
Today as we
enjoy the Christmas decorations, they take us to the baby in the manger who has
taken us to be his siblings. Jesus loves
you so much he shares with you all that the Father has given him. That is his final prayer in Gethsemane
that we are one with him and the father and they are one [John 17]. Just before that prayer, Jesus gave himself to
you in a very unique way, one that joins you together with him not just
spiritually, but of the same body and blood that he is as he miraculously comes
to you in the bread and wine.
Are you a
slave in this world? Think about the
things that have you enslaved from physical needs to social and emotional needs
and pressures to your habits and desires and passions. Jesus gave up everything in this world to buy
you back from all of that, to be his bother in the fullest sense, rejoicing in
the splendors of heaven forever.
In Jesus’ undying love.
Amen.