B Easter 3, 2009                                                          Christ Church , York

It strikes me forcefully every time I read it. A man or a woman in their 60’s, 70’s or even 80’s has died and their obituary is to be found in the local newspaper. All the usual information is listed – age, last place of residence, their hobbies and their accomplishments. But before getting to the listing of their spouse, their children or grandchildren it is often noted that they were the son or daughter of so and so. Regardless of age or gender, well born or poor, educated or not, single, married or divorced, we all live our lives first and foremost as the child of parents. Such parents may be alive or long deceased; they may be close or we have become estranged from them; they may be wonderful or they may be difficult. But whatever they are and whoever they are, they remain our parents and we remain their children. Even at age 61, I remain the child of Michael and Eileen Rooney and even my roles as pastor, husband and father will never change that fact, even though both have long since entered the Church Triumphant. But the most striking thing about being a child of someone is that it is not something we ask for, or plan for or indeed have anything to do with! We become a child of our parents because in love they conceived us and bore us and brought us into this world. It was not our doing but rather theirs; not our plans but rather theirs; not our love but definitely theirs!

Love and children. In almost every case in our world, although there are some exceptions, it is love which brings forth this new creation called a child. So too it is the love of God which brings forth the children of God. And it is this relationship, this spiritual relationship that we have as children of God that the author of First John wants to explore in our lesson today. It is the Gospel of John which speaks to us most forcefully of God’s love for us in that famous passage widely used at sporting events and other activities – John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son to die for us, that all those who believe in Him may not perish but have eternal life.” But we can see God’s love inferred in other places in Scripture such as the story of the Prodigal Son which is really the story of the loving and forgiving father; in the Sermon on the Mount and even the Lord’s Prayer which presupposes God’s loving care for us. And God’s love and care is not limited to the New Testament. The Book of Hosea is filled with such expressions of the love God has for His people. But when Jesus Himself comes on the scene He speaks to His disciples of how it is that God’s love for us is to be reflected in the love they are to have for each other. They are to love their neighbors and even their enemies as well as they love God Himself. Indeed such love was to be an integral part of His teaching and ministry and, after His death, would be that mark of how the disciples would live together with each other. Indeed one of the earliest recorded statements about those early Christians in community was made by a Roman observer who famously remarked “See these Christians. See how they love one another.” The community of believers, the Church, would be the arena in which God’s love is received and accepted and it is from within the Church and for the Church that the author of today’s lesson can speak in a valid way of God’s love. To say that God is love is not some abstract statement, a philosophical thesis. Rather it stems from the experience of God’s grace in Christ Jesus for God’s gift of love is inextricably bound up with the gift of God’s Son in life and death. Only the children of God can speak authentically of God’s love, even as in human relationships only those who love and are loved can speak of love as an experienced reality rather than an abstraction or an unfulfilled yearning.

The proof of the love of God is being called children of God. And like the gift of being a child of others in this life, this gift of being a child of God is precisely that - a gift; which means that we do nothing to merit it. To be called a child of God is to see and experience the effect of God’s love for us. Therefore no one should boast that she or he is a child of God, for then that new status would be viewed as an accomplishment or work rather than as a gift. It is God who chooses us, conceives us and bears us and above all makes us His own in and through the great love He bore for us in Christ Jesus Our Lord.

So we are children of God, conceived and born in love and offered this status, this position as a free gift of grace. But being made God’s own child is different in one other very important way from being a child in this life. As long as I live I will remain the child of my parents, even though they are long dead. But when I die I am no longer a child, for my status as that child is dependant upon my living. But to be a child of God in this life is only the beginning of what will yet be in that great and eternal kingdom of Our God, for there is a reality to this life as a child of God which has not yet been revealed to us but will be in due time. “Beloved we are God’s children now” the author of our lesson tells us. We are God’s children and that cannot and does not change in this life regardless of how old we are, how good or bad we are or how much we acknowledge or ignore that position we hold. We are now and always will be God’s children. But, the author goes on to tell us, “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” There is a life beyond his life; a life even beyond death; and there is a kingdom of God which is yet to come. But we do not know nor do we understand what this kingdom will be or indeed what we will be like in that place; now, in this life, we only have glimpses. St. Paul put it best when he said, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully even as I have been fully understood.” What we do know about this life and our status as a child of God is that it is rooted in the free gift of grace in Christ Jesus Our Lord. Therefore in the kingdom which is to come what we shall be will be modeled after who Christ is and that can only be known when the time comes.

My sisters and brothers, today we come to stand in this time and at that place where the love of God will be known among us once again through the making of two more of His children. James and Chloe will shortly come to this font, to stand here and receive the gift of new life in the waters of baptism. In the life giving waters of this holy sacrament, God will pour upon each of these children the gift of His unmerited grace and love. For neither James nor Chloe have earned or merited this grace and love. Neither has even deserved it and it is not theirs by right. But today God reaches out His hand in love and says to both James and Chloe, “Come and be a sign of my love in this world. Come and be that means by which my love will be expressed in this world as you love others around you. Come and be my child, my beloved child and live in my love all the days of your life.”

But the making of these new children of God today is not the end but only the beginning. They are indeed made children of God now and in this place. And they will be that child of God as long as they live and walk on this good earth. But just as the author tells his readers that there is a reality to this status of being God’s child beyond this life, so too there is a reality for both James and Chloe beyond this day. Marked with the cross of Christ this day they will be, as the words of our service say, a child of God forever. Forever! Far beyond this life once it is over, they will remain God’s child. When this whole world has crumbled into nothing, when the end of the ages has come, when Christ shall come again in power and great glory and the kingdom of God will be revealed in all is splendor, James and Chloe will still be that same child of God. Unlike my own status as a child in this life which ends with my death, my position as a child of God does not end with my death but rather becomes something which none of us can yet fully understand. We will be is still a child of God; but what we will be, as the author of the lesson tells us, has not yet been revealed. But even seeing through the glass darkly we do know this – made a child of God through the waters of baptism, claimed as one of His own through His precious suffering and death; given the gift of new life through His glorious resurrection, Jesus Christ Our Lord comes this day to claim for His kingdom two more souls to live and reign with Him for all eternity. Thanks be to God for this great gift of unmerited grace and love which will allow my obituary and in time that of James and Chloe to read not just child of Eileen and Michael or Jessica and Kevin but simply “child of God…forever.” Amen