"What then will this child be?"

Luke 1:66

          The moment is always magical, when the nurse places a newborn into the arms of an anxious mother.  The pain of childbirth immediately fades as the feelings of love and wonder grow.  Father and family will later press their face against the glass of the nursery to see this child full of hope and promise.  Each one may wonder, “What will this child be?”

          The birth of John the Baptist was unusual because of the advanced age of his mother, and because his father lost the ability to speak as soon as Elizabeth conceived.  This disability followed the doubt he expressed to the angel Gabriel about God’s ability to help his wife conceive; odd in that he knew well the story of Abraham and Sarah.

          The Bible gives us these clues so that people would know this child would have an important future.  But, to every parent every child has an important future.  We all ask, “What will this child be?”  But, not one of us knows the answer.  We do our best.  We try to be good parents, send them to good schools, and bring them to Sunday School; but in the end only God knows what any child may be.

          All we can do is place each of our children in God’s hand, and pray God hold them close to his heart.  This requires, in some sense, a letting go in order to let God, and that is hard to do with someone we so cherish.  Our nature is to protect, but we can’t always.  We must trust that God can, and will hold our children in the palm of His hands.

"In the Beginning God"

Genesis 1:1

          Sometimes people miss the forest for the trees in the story of Genesis.  Biology class conflicts with Sunday school teachers, leaving some confused and even a little bit angry.  Questions of how the universe was created and how life came to be are important, but this is not the question this story tries to answer.

          The question is not so much how as why.  Out of the void and darkness God created order and light. From the barren landscape God brought life in plant and animal.  The dust of the earth provided the building blocks for humanity.  Following each stage of creation, God reviewed and evaluated and then declared it good.

          In other words, it was God who created meaning and the notion that some things are good and others not.  Life is not an accident, but has a purpose.  Fulfillment is found then in find and following that reason for being.

          The forest toward which this story points are found in the first four words, “In the beginning God.”  This is the first premise, the first foundation upon which faith is built. Skip this idea and all that remains is chaos, where life is seen as being completely accidental, and so no eternal meaning can be attached.  Some things are seen as being good only because it seems that way to any individual, and so can change by mood or whim.  But, if God comes first, then following God’s Will leads to fulfillment and God’s Word becomes our guide.