Children of God

Reading John 1:12
"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God..."

In the previous verse we read that "he came to his own but his own did not receive him." What is it to be rejected by your own? What feelings and emotions and hurts pressed in on the humanity of Jesus because those who owed him so much turned him away at the door? He is the Word, the voice of God calling out to us but we have refused to listen or we go on reading the paper while he talks away in the background of our life. He created everything that is, all the things that we live by and enjoy and take great pleasure in but we reject the greatest pleasure of all, the pleasure of knowing him - we take the gifts and reject the giver. He is the life, the spark that turns bare existence into joyful being. We taste the joy but refuse to share it with the one who holds the cup and offers it to us. He is the light but we prefer darkness or shades of gray, thinking that somehow darkness can add a little colour to our world. He is rejected on all counts even though we have nothing without him. The drive to declare our complete independence of God is at the heart of our rebellion against him. Like the prodigal we want our inheritance and we want it all to ourselves, somehow thinking that we will enjoy it more if we can flee our father's world, can get out of his shadow.

Beginning with his birth "he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering...we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:3). The problem of his rejection is reversed when we "receive him" and "believe in his name" but it is never fully put to rest in this world. What betrayal there is even in the heart of the Christian. How often we "grieve" him, reject him from our days routines, ask him to wait while we attend to other things, show him the door when we don't like what he says, rage against him when he will not yield to our will.

Nevertheless, when we open our life to him, acknowledge who he is, recognize our complete dependence on him and give thanks to him for being the reason we have a life at all then we are welcomed as children. We become his in a way that it is not possible to be without receiving Jesus as God. When we join with Thomas in falling down before him and saying "my Lord and my God," then the incarnation moves from being a matter of history to a matter of personal experience. History is set right for me when I open the door and gladly welcome Jesus in.

Any room at the inn this Christmas or will Jesus have to wait until the busy holiday season is over to get the welcome he deserves?