Second Sunday After Christmas ~ Power to Become

The Twelve Days of Christmas
2nd Sunday after Christmas Day

The Power to Become

The age old question that children have had to answer for centuries, no doubt.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Actually, I would guess that in earlier generations the question didn't have to be asked. Whatever it was your father or mother did, that's what you would be when you grew up. Choices were few and far between. Actually there were fewer choices for women. Even if you weren't to become the same as your parent, they often set the expectations you were going to meet.

In the Gospel for this 2nd Sunday of Christmas we hear Jesus talk about HIS desire for us when we "grow up":

John 1:12-14: But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

I just realized that what Jesus did was take us back to an even earlier generation than his. He takes us back to the Garden when we were, by nature, the children of God. "So what are you going to be when you grow up," Jesus asks?

"Go ask your heavenly parent," is the answer. "Why be anything other than what your parent in heaven is? Be a child of God. Live like a child of God."

And Jesus spends the rest of his life showing us what that means.