Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him,
for we will see him as he is.
1 John 3:2
God’s Children: Now and Not Yet
A few weeks ago, I got a Facebook Message from a high school friend. Like many digital friendships, I hadn’t seen or really thought much about Leila in many years. We haven’t seen each other in four and a half decades. Back then, I was a senior and she a freshman in the church youth group. She remembered my leading the singing on my guitar and how much she learned from being around other people of faith.
We first reconnected about a decade ago when she went to work at an Episcopal Church in Florida doing Christian Education. We laughed at how our Presbyterian training had prepared us to be good Episcopalians. Last Saturday, Leila was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church.
Our status as children of God has many strands. Genesis tells us that all human beings are made in God’s image and likeness. The Hebrew Scriptures describe Israel as God’s children, but the prophet Isaiah goes on to suggest that every nation and race would gather as a family around the throne of God.
As a missionary to the Gentiles, Paul described how we are all made children of God through adoption and grace. Baptism was seen as a moment that seals a believer’s relationship in the family as heirs of God’s promises.
In the First Letter of John, we get a glimpse of the intersection of where we are and where we will be. There is an assurance that we are part of the family, even as there is a promise of something more. A clarity awaits us that will help us to see Jesus fully and be fully like him.
In 1976, neither Leila or I had any idea what God had in mind for us. Our identity as children of God was a gift of grace. Even today our identity as ordained people remains only a foretaste.
This Eastertide, you, friends, share sibling status with us in Christ. Together, we all await the glory that will be revealed!
Alleluia!
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O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
