God's Family Planning

4 Advent B        December 20, 2020
2 Samuel 7:4,8-16     Ps.89       
Romans 16:25-27     Luke 1:26-38  

Lectionary Link

Today we read the account of the announcing to Mary of her impending conception and birth of the Christ Child, delivered by the Archangel Gabriel.
I would like to ponder the wisdom story of salvation history in the Bible using the notion of God's family planning.  What indeed, according to the wisdom insights of the Bible, was God's great family plan?

God crafted the first child, out of dust and Spirit to make a living soul Adam so Adam was dust and deity.  Woman should not that Eve was crafted out of higher material, the rib of a man and Spirit, thus accounting for the superior nature of women.

In the wisdom story and allegory, God's plan for these innocent people was to train them progressively into the path of holiness so that they could partake from the Tree of Life at the center of the Garden.  They got tricked from the training program by a crafty trickster and came to the knowledge of good and evil in the wrong way, and they lost their dominate God-identity and took on the dominate earthly identity.  The image of God within became covered up to the point of being seemingly lost.  So, God's family planning needed a strategy of the recovery of the realization of being God's children.  People needed to know that God was their creator parent.

God's family plan to help people recover knowing themselves as God's children, involved making covenants with specific persons and with the people of Israel.  This was done not to limit membership in God's family to but a few, but to use these specific covenants as the launching place to reach all people.

God's family planning included marvelous births.  The births of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah, the birth of Samuel to Hannah.  God's family planning involved miraculous protection, as in the sparing of the life of baby Moses from the infanticide in Egypt.  God's family planning included building a house.  The unlikely youngest son of Jesse, David became the king of Israel and God asked him to build a house, God's house, a Temple to be a house of prayer for all people.  The people of Israel were chosen to be a particular family of God and they were to distinguish themselves by honoring God in a special way to be a witness to the nations. 

Israel in their history became too involved with just maintaining a separate identity 

from the rest of the nations, as a mode of protection against assimilation, so how could the family plan of God be realized to all people?

God went from marvelous births to a miraculous birth.  And this brings us to story of Mary and the angel Gabriel.  Once again, God did some family planning.  And the gift of Jesus was given to Mary and to the world.

Jesus was the unique exemplar child of God who was given to this world so that all could realize their status as children of God.

And Jesus was born to Mary.  And the Risen Christ is born in us and all as the way to be restored in the original image of God upon our lives.

Let us be a part of the family planning mission of God today.    How do we do this?  By thinking that we're exclusively children of God because of our particular church affiliation?  Not at all; we are part of God's family planning mission as we convince people of their inherent dignity and worth in bearing the image of God as a children of God.  

The Risen Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit can help us fulfill God's family planning for everyone in the world.  And we like Mary should accept the announcement of the birth of Christ in us, and say, "Let it be according to your word."  Let it be! Let it be!  Speaking words of wisdom, let it be!  Amen.