Christmas Weekday
We returned home from a week of travels yesterday, visiting family and friends that we moved away from a few years ago. We came home to our Christmas tree still up and some opened gifts still under the tree, the favorite ones made the trip with us. We are still in the Octave of Christmas and we leave our tree up until Epiphany. Having left soon after Christmas, I’m glad we still have a few more days to take in the Christmas season at home. Today’s readings remind me a little of the gift-giving we so recently did, especially for our children. Like most parents, we want to make Christmas special for them. Although we (and, I hope, they) know that giving and receiving gifts is not the most important part of Christmas, we want them to feel special and loved when they open their gifts Christmas morning. We take care to give gifts that show that we pay attention to their likes and interests and have listened to their wishes and desires (while also exercising parental judgment and a budget!)
Hopefully, this Christmas, we were reminded that God gave us the greatest gift and sign of God’s love for us: the gift of God’s son. Today’s first reading (1 John 2:29-36) reminds us that this gift has made us, as Christians, true children of God. We read, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.” (3:1)What a gift to not only receive God’s son, but to be a child of God! This reinforces what we hopefully already know: that God is a relational God, and we are blessed to be given the opportunity to be in relationship with God. This parent-child relationship with our Creator is a present reality as well as part of the gift of the life to come as Christians.
This first letter of John also points out that our actions reflect our true relation to God. When we sin, we cease to have fellowship or right relationship with God, until we return to God and are reconciled once again. Our hope is in the knowledge that although “what we shall be has not yet been revealed…when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”(3:2b) As children of God, we are called to be like Jesus, God’s son.
Today’s gospel reading (John 1: 29-34) also emphasizes the relational nature of God. We read that John saw the Spirit descend on Jesus like a dove and “remain upon him.” “Remain” is a word that the gospel author uses frequently throughout John’s gospel to emphasize the permanency of the relationship between the Father and Son, and between the Son and us as Christians. Our God is a relational God, and we have been created to reflect that relationship with one another.
As we begin a new year, let us pray that we may fully embrace our heritage as children of God and live our lives accordingly, in right relationship to God and with one another, both at home and in our communities. Perhaps we can begin to ask ourselves, “How would a child of God act in this situation?” We have been given the greatest gift of all by God our father and mother; let us embrace that gift fully.
- Eileen Miller