Homily For the First Sunday After Christmas
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the ancient world, adoption meant something a little different than it means today. It wasn’t sentimental. It wasn’t symbolic. It was legal. It was decisive. And once it happened, everything changed.
One of the most famous examples comes from the Roman Empire. There was a young man named Octavian. He was not born into power. He was not born a king. He did not grow up wanting or even expecting to rule the world.
But something happened. Julius Caesar, the most powerful man in Rome, adopted him.
This wasn’t because Octavian had done anything to prove himself. He did nothing to earn it. It happened simply because Caesar chose him.
And when Caesar died, Octavian didn’t merely inherit money or property. He inherited Caesar’s name. He inherited his authority, his position, his power, and his kingdom. The old Octavian was, in a very real sense, gone. A new identity had been given.
From that moment on, he was Caesar Augustus, ruler of the Roman Empire.
And everything rested on one thing; one decisive act: adoption.
Adoption is not something we are still waiting for. It has already happened.
This is what our Collect, Epistle, and Gospel are communicating to us today. This is the world the Apostle Paul was speaking into, and this is the kind of adoption he had in mind when he described what Christ has done for us.
In our Epistle lesson from Galatians 4, Paul tells us that there is an heir, yet this heir lives like a servant or even a slave. This is not meant to diminish his humanity or importance. Rather, it describes a child who already belongs to the household, who already has the same father and the same inheritance, but who lives under restraint.
Paul says the child is under guardians and stewards. He lives under the Law as a schoolmaster. This is not because he has lost his rights, but because he has not yet entered into the fullness of them.
And Paul says this was true of us as well. We were in bondage under the elements of the world. But then something changed.
“When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive adoption as sons.”
Notice who decides the timing. The Father does.
In every household, the father determines when a child comes of age. And in the household of God, the Father determined that the appointed time was Christmas: the Incarnation.
Christmastide is the moment when God acts. This is not random. This is not reactive. This is the fulfillment of everything the Old Testament was pointing toward. This is the fullness of time.
God sent forth His only Son, born of a woman, the second Eve, born under the Law, so that He might fulfill the righteous requirements of the Law that we could not fulfill ourselves. He did this to redeem those who stood condemned under the Law because of sin.
And the goal of all of this, Paul tells us, is adoption.
This adoption is not metaphorical. It is legal. It is real. It is sacramental. It is our true identity in Christ.
Paul says we are no longer slaves or servants, but sons; and if sons, then heirs of God through Christ. And because we are sons and daughters, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father.”
We belong to God.
Adoption is not something we are still waiting for. It has already happened.
Some of you still live like you are waiting to be sent away; like God is merely tolerating you. This text says otherwise. I have experienced that same feeling, the sense that God is just waiting for the moment to send me away. But thanks be to God, His inspired Word clearly says something very different. And if you feel that way at times, know that you are in good company.
We see this same theme continued in the Gospel according to St. Matthew.
Christ, the second Adam, takes to Himself a true human nature in the Incarnation; not adding anything to His divinity, but assuming our humanity.
We meet Joseph, described as a just man. He is faithful, obedient, and righteous under the Law. And under the Law, Joseph had the legal right to separate from Mary, because the child she carried was not his.
The Law could manage the situation, but it could not give life. It could only expose sin.
As Joseph pondered these things, an angel appeared to him in a dream. God revealed His purpose. And Joseph was commanded to take the child as his own.
Joseph was commanded to adopt.
The theme of adoption is here in the Collect. It is here in the Epistle. And it is here in the Gospel.
Joseph, in humility and faith, names the child Jesus. And in naming Him, Joseph confers legal fatherhood. Jesus is brought into the line of David. Joseph adopts Him by obedience and faith.
Galatians tells us what adoption means.
St. Matthew shows us what adoption looks like.
And in all of this, we see the humility of Christ, God tabernacling among us. Christ takes on our nature. He suffers as we suffer. He is tempted as we are tempted.
So when you consider your own suffering, ask yourself: has Christ suffered in ways like this? And then consider the humility of St. Joseph, the faith and obedience it took to raise a child who was truly his by adoption, but not by blood.
This brings us back to the Collect:
“Almighty God, who hast given Thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon Him… grant that we, being regenerate, and made Thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by Thy Holy Spirit.”
The word regenerate here is tied to baptism. Baptism is our entrance into the Church. It is our citizenship in the Kingdom of God. It is where God makes us His children by adoption and grace.
So all who believe in Christ by faith and have been baptized are adopted sons and daughters of God.
Servants obey out of fear.
Adopted sons and daughters obey out of love.
We no longer serve God because we are afraid of being cast out, exposed, or rejected. We serve Him because we know we belong.
This adoption reshapes everything:
our prayer, because God truly hears us
our repentance, because we desire to please our Father
our obedience, because His ways are good
Even in suffering, we recognize ourselves as sons and daughters, because we suffer in union with Christ, who suffered for us in the Incarnation.
Adoption is not something we are still waiting for. It has already happened.
If you are in Christ, you are not on probation. You are home.
At Christmas, God did not give us better laws. He gave us His Son, so that in Him, we might become sons.
Jesus did not come to abolish the Law or change a jot or tittle of it. He came to fulfill it, and to apply the righteousness He fulfilled to us, out of love.
It is also worth remembering that Caesar Augustus, the adopted son we spoke about at the beginning, presided over what history calls the Pax Romana, a period of peace. Under his rule, roads were built and expanded, piracy was suppressed, and safe travel was made possible across the empire. All of this created the conditions in which the Gospel could spread, churches could be planted, and the good news of Jesus Christ could travel to the ends of the known world.
This was not an accident. The adoption of that man was part of God’s providential plan, just as the adoption of Joseph into the story of Christ was part of God’s plan, and just as your adoption as sons and daughters in Christ is part of God’s plan.
God works through history, through households, and through adoption to bring about His purposes of redemption and peace.
Amen.
