According to the American
Academy of Child & Adolescent
Psychiatry, in an article
entitled, "The Adopted Child,"
there is significant
disagreement about revealing
this information.
Many experts believe the
child should be told at the
earliest possible age, which
"provides the youngster the
advantage of accepting and
integrating the concept of being
adopted."
Other experts say, No,
telling a child too soon may
confuse the young person.
In either case, all
children should learn the truth,
and they will want to talk about
openly about their adoption.
John begins with a glorious Prologue and some
magnificent language about the vastness of God’s
Cosmos, but then he gets very down to earth
in his version of the "birth" of Jesus.
from the universe to
taking up residence in an
earthly dwelling
(i) literally, a tent,
where Jesus is a foreigner,
from glory to corruptible
flesh and blood,
from universal acceptance
to total rejection,
from a joyous celebration
to a great tragedy.
The "great tragedy" of the Gospel of
John, says renowned Scottish theolgian, Dr.
William Barclay,
is that God’s people for centuries
were being prepared for a glorious task
and they refused that task:
"We do not want your Son,
We do not want to be adopted as
your children."
They said, "No!" to God.
And it broke the heart of God.
Imagine as parents, you have a
dream for your child, you prepare him or
her through the years, you sacrifice
your married lives to work toward that
goal, you go without to find special
tutors. When the time comes to make the
commitment, for your kid to put the name
on the dotted line, she says, "No."
A childless widow had no
rights, could not inherit
property.
When Jesus saw the widow
of Nain at her only son’s
funeral, he had pity and
immediately restored her son’s
life (Luke 7.11).
In ancient Israel, an adopted son
who lived in the family household had
the same rights of inheritance as a
natural child, but even more than this
an adopted child could never be
disinherited!
At the baptism of Jesus in this fourth
Gospel, some experts make a case for Jesus
"adopting" the role of Messiah--voluntarily
embracing what his own people refused,
I like Eugene Peterson’s
refinement of the Greek language here: "
He
came to his own people, but they didn’t
want him. But whoever did want him, who
believed he was who he claimed and would
do what he said, He made to be their
true selves, their child-of-God selves."
The right to be adopted by God
requires two responses: a human
response and a divine response.
Is it really our choice,
or is it God’s choice?
I must receive and welcome
him,
I must believe in his
name, so he may adopt me.
In several of Jesus’ parables it
is no accident that two kinds of sons
are portrayed:
first there is the one who
on the surface seems obedient
and agreeable, and it is usually
the first-born.
Then the second son who
rejects his sonship, who wants
his right up front.
Who then proves to be the
one s true son?
I have a married cousin Ann del
Vecchio. She and her husband Gene
have a natural son Michael. Right after
the breakup of Communism in eastern
Europe, the del Velcchios decided to
adopt a daughter in a Romanian
orphanage. Ann and her mother, after
much prayer and preparation, traveled to
Romania to find a daughter. But they
ended up adopting two girls, about 6 or
7 years of age. Perhaps it would be more
accurate to say they "bought" them. The
girls names are Madonna and Monica. Ann
later appeared on James Dobson’s "Focus
on the Family" to be interviewed about
this experience. The two girls who are
grown now had many problems in growing
up. The sisters turned out to be two
very different persons, as in Jesus’
parables, but Ann and Gene will tell you
that they love these two as much as they
love their own son.
John Calvin stresses "the grace
of adoption," in saying it is not
you or me who makes the final decision
of adoption, but the adopted child is
"re-formed" by the Spirit of God
who dwells in none but the children of
God," the true sons and daughters. - 2 -
Calvin declares, you only
get so far by "believing."
Adoption is a gift, just
as faith is a gift.
And this adoption through the Spirit becomes
instant!
At the moment of welcoming Christ,
at the moment of saying
Yes to God,
at the moment of baptism.
There is a sense, says Dr. Barclay
in his Westminster Commentary, "in which
someone is not naturally a child of God.
There is a sense in which he/she has to
become a child of God."
Why should I be adopted? It is illustrated so
well by the story about a successful married man
and his wife, a couple who wanted more than
anything else to have a family and enjoy their
children.
As they aged, they realized the
dream of their hearts was not to be;
they would remain childless. They
decided to adopt a son. But within a
year tragedy struck. Their young son
came down with polio. He spent most of
his short life bed-ridden. The wife
never recovered from that heartbreak and
she died before their invalid son did.
However, the adoptive father was devoted
to his son. There was also another
care-giver, the son’s nurse, who cared
for that boy as if he were her own.
Years after the boy’s death, the
businessman passed away leaving a great
estate. No one could find his will.
So the day came when the entire
household staff, his business partners,
and distant relatives gathered to
dispose of the estate. The woman who had
been the boy’s nurse was there also. She
was asked what she wanted, and she
replied, Only the picture of the
son that hung in the hallway. Nothing
else? she was asked. No, that is all.
When she went home, she noticed
the back of the picture did not seem to
fit very well. She began to examine it,
and a piece of yellowed paper fell out.
To her astonishment, the paper said
this, "Whoever loves my son enough to
ask for this picture receives all that I
have."
Is not this also our inheritance?
"
See
what love the father has given
us that we should be called
children of God, and so we are"
(1 John 3.1).
This first chapter of John appears
in the lectionary every Christmas
season. It is a beautiful Christmas
reading.
I conclude this morning with this amazing
poem about an adopted child by Jill
Marshall-Work. You will be unable to discover
the 4-year-old was adopted.
She was given
a picture of Jesus to color
in her Sunday School classroom that day.
If she would have asked me the color of His
face,
I wouldn't have known what to say.
Warm brown like her brother's? Or peach like her
parents' ?
Or tan like her own golden hue?
But she didn't ask me the color of His face--
she colored it blue.
Would his hair
be in black flecked with gray like her Daddy's?
Or would it be copper like mine?
Or silver like Grandma's? Or maize like her
cousins,
with a layer of gold for some shine?
Or gray like her Grandad? Or dark like her own,
a cascade of silky black ink?
But she didn't ask me the color of His hair--
she colored it pink.
One ear was
turquoise, the other was green.
His beard was the purplest purple that I've ever
seen.
She made His lips yellow, His neck was in brown.
Then she looked at His eyes and she stopped with
a frown.
Had she
noticed His eyes were as round as a marble,
with her Daddy's and mine the same way?
The eyes in her picture were not like the eyes
that she saw in the mirror each day.
But you'd think that by now I would realize
how the world would be seen
through my daughter's sweet, 4-year-old,
almond-shaped eyes.
For her whole box of crayons was used to portray
the rainbow of love that she found in the eyes
of her Jesus
in the picture she colored that day.
She was given
a picture of Jesus to color
in her Sunday School class, but you see--
The Sunday School lesson in love that was
learned
was taught by my four-year-old daughter to me.