Christmastide

January 2, 2020

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 1:3-14

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. –Ephesians 1:3-6

As a once-upon-a-time child welfare worker, I can easily say that my greatest joy involved doing adoption studies and placing children for adoption. My tenure doing such work fell on the cusp of the time young pregnant girls would come to our office with their mothers usually indicating that they were pregnant and wanted to place the baby for adoption as quietly as possible. We often whisk them off to another county to live in a foster home until the baby was delivered. The family would tell others that their daughter had gone to stay with an aunt or grandmother who needed some help. I think of that when I read that Joseph wished to put Mary away quietly. I am sure the change was more gradually than it felt but like an overnight occurrence suddenly these young women quit coming for help and chose to keep their child. Our roles changed also as we worked to assure that these single mothers and their babies needs were met.

Belonging to a family is a very important sociological and psychological part of every human’s wellbeing. Adoption meets that need for those whose parents are deceased and for those whose parents are for whatever reason not able to care for them. Adoption as Paul uses it may be his attempt to help the gentiles understand that through Jesus Christ God spreads God’s covenant of care not only to God’s Hebrew children but all God’s children and God specifically sent Jesus Christ to share this good news with them. I think the relationship was always present, but some did not know about how much God loved them and Jesus’ followers were tasked with changing that circumstance which is still our job today.

Prayer: We praise you, O God, for the wonder of your parenthood and ask that you support our efforts to share it with all your children. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.