Year A, Advent 4, Children’s Sermon

Year A, Fourth Sunday of Advent

“Adoption”

Matthew 1:18-25

Object:  Gather at the manger scene and focus on Joseph.

Today, I want to talk with you about adoption.  You might know some children who are adopted.  They needed parents, and some very good adults did a wonderful thing to welcome children into their lives as a real part of their family.

Our sons are adopted.  Before we could adopt them, they had to live with us for a little while as foster kids.  They actually came to live with us one week before Christmas.  A few months later, it was time to adopt the boys as our sons.  We had to hire a lawyer and go to court so the boys could legally become our sons.  That was a busy and important day, and we were a little nervous because we had never done this before and we didn't know what would happen.

As part of the adoption, we decided to give our sons middle names which were names from our families, and they would share our last name, too.  During the adoption procedure in the courtroom, the judge got to the part where the new names would become the boys’ legal names.  She asked me, “I see you are changing the boys’ names?”  I said yes, and then she went on, “Starting with the oldest boy, please tell me their new names.”  I began to recite my sons’ new names—and then it caught me!  I was doing what all parents had done for ages.  I was naming my children, and on this particular occasion, I was telling the whole world they were mine—and their mother’s too, of course.  I have to tell you, that was a very amazing feeling.  I cried a little bit.  OK, I cried a lot.

In the story of Jesus’ birth in the gospel of Matthew, Joseph finds out that Mary is going to have a baby.  An angel tells Joseph that the child is not his, but is from the Holy Spirit.  Matthew tells us that Joseph was a righteous man, so he married Mary, and when the baby was born, he named the boy Jesus.  Now here’s something wonderful that we might not notice when we read this story every Christmas.  When Joseph named the baby, do you know what he did?  He adopted Jesus.  He gave him his name, and by doing so, he made a clear and loving choice to welcome Jesus into his life and into his family as his very own.

Joseph is a good example for us.  He looked a Jesus and said, “He is mine.”  Funny, Joseph adopted Jesus and that Child became the way through which God adopts all of us.  Through Jesus, God says to everyone, “You are mine.”  And now, it is important for us to respond to such good news.  God would love nothing more than for each of us to welcome Jesus into our lives as our very own, to see the Savior born in Bethlehem and say, “He is mine, too.” When we “adopt Jesus”, we find out that God did the very same thing for us a long, long time ago.  God made the clear and loving choice to welcome us as his very own children.

Dear God,

Thank you for loving us and claiming us as your family.  Bless us and bless our families as we celebrate how you chose us all to be your children.  It’s in the name of your Son, our Brother, we pray.  Amen.