Grace and Peace Episode 17
Presbyterian Church of Easton
December 29, 2020
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:2
33Q. Why is he called God’s “only begotten Son” when we also are God’s children?
A. Because Christ alone is the eternal, natural Son of God. We, however, are adopted children of God— adopted by grace through Christ.
34Q. Why do you call him “our Lord”?
A. Because— not with gold or silver, but with his precious blood— he has set us free from sin and from the tyranny of the devil and has bought us, body and soul, to be his very own.
As I write we are in the midst of our Christmas celebrations. I hope that you and your family are having a very Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year.
Christmas is when we remember the coming of God’s Son to earth as a little baby. The baby, born that night, had a mother named Mary. He also had a father, but it wasn’t Joseph. Jesus’ father was the Holy Spirit. And this makes Jesus the one and only Son of God.
We, who believe, are also children of God. We are adopted into the family by God’s grace through Jesus Christ. We read in Ephesians 1:4-6, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” So we can celebrate both Jesus’ birth and our adoption as God’s children at Christmas.
We call Jesus, “Lord”. Our English word “lord” comes from the Old English, hlāford, or “loaf warden”. This was title given to the family member who had the responsibility to protect the home and put loaves of bread on the table for the family to eat. “Lord”, “loaf warden” became the title for the nobility who were responsible for protecting the community and ensuring that everyone had loaves of bread to eat. When translators took the Hebrew word Adonai and the Greek word Kurios they translated them into the English word Lord, loaf warden. The Lord protects us from harm and blesses us with food to eat.
And the good news of Christmas is the gospel message. We read in Romans 10:9 “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” And so at Christmas, we celebrate the coming to earth of our Lord, loaf warden, Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for coming to us on Christmas. We thank you for adopting us as children. We thank you for protecting us and giving us food to eat. And so we confess with our lips that you are Lord. Amen.
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