Scripture: Galatians 4:4-7 (NRSV)
Think back to those days when you were young. Those days when your biggest responsibility was choosing what bedtime story Mom should read, and the thing you dreaded most was the steamed broccoli that Dad insisted you eat to “make you big and strong.” Or perhaps you didn’t grow up in such a privileged setting, and the situation I described was something you dreamt of, but never had.
If you did grow up in such a home, imagine you hadn’t. Imagine you had no concept of what it is like to be cared for by anyone or held in the arms of a father or a mother. Imagine not having a home, moving from place to place, and never having anyone show you love. No one to read to you, tell you to eat your broccoli, and no one to hold you when you hurt.
Imagine that someone came along and showed you for the first time what it meant to be loved and comforted. This is what the Galatians passage describes. Instead of being sent from place to place, Christ is our home, and we cry to him “Abba, Father.” Christ is born as both a child and a father, adopting us as his children. He shows us love and teaches us how to love. Christ adopts us into the family of God so we may be, as the hymn states, “no more a stranger nor a guest, but like a child at home.”
Scripture: Galatians 4:4-7 (NRSV)
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. 6And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.