"Sons of the Father by Jesus through the Spirit" First Sunday after Christmas Stephen, Deacon and Martyr December 26, 2010 Galatians 4:4-7
Today is the day after Christmas. If you were to answer the question, Why was Jesus born?, you would probably say something along the lines of, to be our Savior. And you would be exactly right. God didn’t become a man—and become a man by doing it the way we do, by being born—on a lark. He became a man to deliver man from sin and hell. Christmas is about the birth of Christ in terms of God being born to be our Savior, not just the fact that Christ was born. But the great thing about the Bible is that we don’t have to just say the ‘same old thing’, if saying that Christ is our Savior is the same old thing. It’s not, but it can seem that way because we get bored easily. That’s where the vast scope of the Bible comes in. It not only tells us that Jesus is our Savior but tells us in many different ways. The way it says it in today’s Epistle reading is “so that we might receive adoption as sons.” This might not sound like the same thing as being forgiven, being saved, being given eternal life, or some of the other familiar phrases we use to describe God saving us. But that’s exactly what Paul is saying. He says that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” The reason Christ was born was so that we might receive adoption as sons. What does this mean? It means that God is our Father but adopts us because we terminated the relationship. If you have ever talked with someone, or have experienced this yourself, whose child has cut off all contact with them you know the agony they live with each day of having lost their child. When Paul refers to receiving the adoption as sons we might think of a couple who is unable to have children and so adopts a child. When the adoption is complete that child is fully a child of that father and mother. Although the child was not physically born from the mother and from the union of the couple, legally, and in the eyes and hearts of the couple, that child is their son or daughter. And this is what Paul has in mind. But think about what God really did. He didn’t adopt us as ones who were someone else’s. We were His and we cut ourselves off from Him. He created us to be in a perfect relationship with Him, He our loving Father and we His beloved children. Our sin against Him changed all that. He showered only love and care on us and we sought our fulfillment in ourselves. God adopts us because He wants to restore us to that original perfect relationship with Him. It’s similar to the couple who mourns the loss of their child who has cut off the relationship. All they can do is grieve and hope and pray and unconditionally leave the welcome mat out for their beloved child. Another similar picture is the familiar one of the father who welcomed back his prodigal son. This is what God has done for us. How He has done it is by doing something the grieving couple cannot do. God has done it by giving over His very own Son. “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son.” What we celebrate at Christmas is not just that Jesus was born. If there were no more to it than that He was born, there would be no more reason to celebrate His birth than any other person. But Paul tells us why we celebrate the birth of Christ: God sent forth His Son. God wanted us back. He grieved. He reached out to us. He loved us. He went through the process of adopting us as His very own children. They way He did it was by sending forth His Son. Mary and Joseph may have thought they were the parents of Jesus, but He was God’s only-begotten Son. Mary and Joseph were indeed His mother and father, but the ultimate relationship was between Jesus and His Father, the Almighty God. God sent forth His Son in order to adopt Mary and Joseph as His very own children. Mary was the mother God, and in her Son she was adopted as a daughter of God. Joseph was called by God to adopt Jesus as his very own son and in his own adopted Son he, that is, Joseph, became an adopted son of God. Jesus lay there in the manger in stark contrast to Mary and Joseph, brought into this world with no sin. He was born of a woman but not of the union of a man and a woman and therefore was without sin. He was fully human but not under the condemnation of the Law because He in His life broke God’s Law in no way. But as He lay there in the manger He lay in solidarity with His mother and father, Mary and Joseph. He, like them, was born under the Law. He, God, the Author of that Law, now was living under it. Adoptive couples will often go to great lengths to adopt a child. Often there is a lot of sacrifice involved. This is what Jesus did. He went to the greatest length possible in order that we may be adopted by the Heavenly Father. He was born, Paul says, under the Law “to redeem those who were under the Law.” That’s you and me and everyone. We are all born and therefore all under the Law. God’s Law is imprinted on our hearts. We are subject to it. You can fool yourself by rationalizing your stealing or your derogatory talk of others or your coveting others’ possessions, but you stand condemned under that Law of God. The Ten Commandments leave no room for anyone. In our greatest weakness and in our pride we do not fear, love, and trust in God above all things. This is what Jesus was born under, even though He didn’t have to. Even though He Himself is without sin. He was born under the Law in order to redeem us, we who are under the Law and stand condemned under the Law. We are cut off. We have cut ourselves off from God by our sin and He has brought His hammer of the Law down on us for our sin. The only way for Him to bring us back is by His Son. God sent forth His Son. He sent Him to be born as we are, of a woman, in order to be born under that Law, as we are. The reason He has done so is so that we might receive adoption as sons. We are sons of the Father by Jesus. This is who God is. He is our Heavenly Father. He loves us and wants us back as His sons and daughters. When we are His sons and daughters we truly are as the older brother of the prodigal son, where God says to us, “All that I have is yours.” This is who God is. This is why He sent forth His Son. And because the vast scope of the Bible stems from the vast scope of God—after all, who can contain God—God is not only our Heavenly Father who has adopted us, He is also the Triune God. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the everlasting Trinity, incomprehensible, and yet truly the Triune God. He is the only God, one God, to be sure, not three. And yet in three Persons, although not in parts, is if God could be divided. We cannot understand this kind of truth, but do we need to? Do you understand why God loves you? That is perhaps the most incomprehensible thing of all, and yet we don’t believe it because we understand it, but simply because God has given us the faith to believe it. The fact that God is Triune doesn’t show us that God loves to teach us doctrines that we must try to understand intellectually. It shows us that He is a relational God. That He loves to be in relationship, that He loves to love and provide for and care for and shower blessings upon. That we are the recipients of this relationship with God is, well, incomprehensible. But it’s also awesome! It’s simply fantastic that God wants to be in relationship with us and bless us. So what He has done is adopt us as sons and daughters by His Son through the Holy Spirit. Paul says “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” It is by His Son we are adopted and through His Holy Spirit we are brought into this relationship. Jesus was born under the Law although not under the condemnation of it. But the reason He was born was in order to hang upon the cross and suffer the condemnation of the Law by His Father. The Holy Spirit brings the forgiveness won by Christ on the cross into our life in Baptism. God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Could we really call God our Father apart from His Son and His Holy Spirit? No, we would stand cut off from Him. By His Son and through His Spirit we are His sons and daughters. When we sin we cut ourselves off from God, making ourselves slaves to sin. We are under the condemnation of the Law and cannot break free. But by the Son of God and through the Holy Spirit we, as Paul says, “are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” We are adopted. We are fully sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father. All that is His is ours. Today, December 26, the day after Christmas, we’re at the farthest day we can be from our next celebration of Christmas. But we don’t need a date on the calendar to tell us what we know about that little baby that was born in Bethlehem: that we are sons and daughters of the Father by Jesus through the Spirit. Yesterday, today, a year from now, every day, and eternally we celebrate as ones who are heirs of eternal life, sons and daughters of the God who loves to love and give and provide and bless. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] ___________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author (as long as no charge is made for the work and it is not made part of a compilation), as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. Note: This list's default reply is to the *poster*, NOT the list. Do *not* reply to the list with your comments, but to the poster. Subscribe? 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