By Not Known
God was and God created. And behold there were people, one with the earth from whose dust we are formed, but also one with God whose image we bare and whose breath give life. There we were, true children of the soil, but also the family of God.
That’s us isn’t it? Made from the elements of the earth, yet made to be God’s family. Our natural point of equilibrium, rest, harmony and tranquillity is to live on earth with our hears set on heaven. In one sense we are kin with everything on earth, yet we are radically separated from them because we alone are God’s representatives on the earth. We are distant cousins to the physical creation, yet made to be sons and daughters of the living God.
Buy we are not content just to be sons and daughters of God. Our ancestors declared war on heaven. They thought they were pushing God away but they were really pushing themselves away.
But still we were God’s family. Like the prodigal son we were drawn to the bright lights of the city of this world and we enjoyed ourselves after a fashion in the gaudy carnival. But always within us there is a longing to be reconnected, to know our roots, to be family again with the God who is our father and maker. Always too there was a yearning in the Father’s heart. And so, he send the Son: the eternal uncreated Son sent to the streets of the carnival to reclaim the prodigals.
Some of God’s created children longed inwardly to be restored to the family circle. But things are too far gone to just walk back in the door and expect things could be the same.
Heaven’s door opened. The uncreated and eternal Son come to bear the terrible punishment that was ours. Behind the sanitised cradle stands the bloodstained cross where the awesome deed was done. Before hell’s door the sacrifice was made, the blood money was paid and the captive were freed. The family is restored.
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
— children born not of natural descent,nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (John 1:12-13)