Exodus
19:5-6b (NASB) 5 Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My
covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all
the earth is Mine; 6b and
you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’
Ephesians
2:12 (RSV) 12 remember that you were at that time separated from
Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the
covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
I Peter
2:4-5, 10 (NIV) 4 As you come to him,
the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—
5 you also, like living stones, are
being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, 10 Once you were not a people, but now you
are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have
received mercy.
We tend to believe that our most important needs
are for tangible things like food, clothes, housing, and the necessities to
maintain good health. We have another need that is intangible, yet which may be
more basic to our well-being than many of the more commonly felt needs. We have
a need to belong. It is a need recognized by God, and is included in God’s
basic commitment to the people of Israel and therefore to you and to me … you shall be My own
possession among all the peoples. Peter reminds the early Christians of a
time when their need for belonging was not being met … once you were not a
people. Paul speaks the same truth to the churches in Ephesus … you were at that time separated from Christ. Belonging is a basic
human need. We are born with it. We have a need to belong to a family, to
someone or something greater than ourselves.
Belonging is life giving and life sustaining, but
it is also a very difficult need to meet. It is difficult in part because we
tend to deny the need, and there is a spirit to our times that works against
the need to belong. But even if we could eliminate all the difficulties in our
society, belonging is still a difficult need to meet because the problem is as
much in us as it is around us. How does a self-seeking person meet their need
to belong?
Peter’s words echo with belonging. Once we were a
bunch of loose stones lying scattered on the ground. Now we have come together
like a beautiful spiritual house with Christ as the cornerstone. We have been
chosen by God to belong, and that makes it possible for us to belong regardless
of our basic, self-seeking lives. It is like being adopted. It is like getting
married. The Messiah has come and we have responded to His call. Therefore we
belong to God and to His Kingdom and to His people. Christmas is visible,
tangible proof that we are claimed as God’s own people. Christmas is the gift
of belonging.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope December
6, 1992
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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