A Rags To Riches Christmas

“A Rags to Riches Christmas”- Heb.2:10-3:1

Thomas Waterfield was born in Springtown Camp, in Derry, Northern Ireland. After the war there was an intense housing shortage in the area. Shanty apartments were incredibly dangerous. The people of the area decided to leave the slum and squat at Springtown camp, a former American base consisting of nothing more than rows of tin quonset huts. There was no running water, heat or electric.

It became home to hundreds of the poorest families. But on the inside the huts were dark, cold, grim, damp, smelly - everything that you wouldn't want a home to be. Mice, Rats and lice abounded."It had a big impact on people's health. People had serious ache's, pains and chest infections. Tuberculosis was common. There were deaths too. "A dozen in a hut would have been a luxury. There were huts that held 19 people. News reports from the time told of the feeling of drift and rejection and the sense of desolation. Fear plagued the residents as no one knew where their next meal would come from or if they might freeze to death during the night. "One lady described it to me as 'hell on earth.’ Because of politics and the Catholic, Protestant tensions, these poor folk experienced severe discrimination that would make finding employment nearly impossible. This was the world Thomas Waterfield was born into. A world of poverty, disease, hunger and discrimination. His mother, like many mothers, was desperate to find a way out.

Into that ‘hell’ entered Jane Russell. You younger folks may not know her but she was one of Hollywood’s most celebrated sex symbols of the 1940s. She starred in such movies as ‘The Outlaw’ and “Gentlemen prefer Blondes’ opposite Marilyn Monroe. What few people knew, though she admitted many failures, was she was also a born-again Christian who hosted Bible studies in her home. She also could not have children. She had publicly expressed a desire to adopt an Irish son. Thomas’ mother heard that news and contacted Jane. In a move that caused great controversy as well as legal action, Jane and Thomas’ mother circumvented adoption laws and Thomas was given to Jane for adoption at an arranged meeting place. His mother, fighting her tears said, “This means a new life for him.” Later in life, a friend of Thomas’ mother met Thomas out in Arizona and said;

“In them days, there was nothing here for you to do…your mother didn’t give you away because she didn’t want you, she gave you away because she loved you.”

The adoption moved Thomas to a world apart, steeped in glamour caused Thomas to acknowledge he was “blessed.” Years later, One friend of his mother, tells Thomas, “Your life was like a fairytale to us.” And Thomas replied; “It feels like a fairytale to me!”

Can you imagine what the changes were like for Thomas! From abject poverty to a lifestyle of the rich and famous!

Well, a very similar story is our story, in a spiritual sense. There is a magnificent story of adoption in Scripture that involves every believer. The resulting benefits are even grander than any adoption done here on earth.

Christmas is not the beginning of our adoption story, but it starts the visible unfolding of the process. Our adoption story actually begins before time in the mind of God. Eph.1:4-6 states;

“ For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship[b] through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.”

That was the time-less plan. In Gal.4:4-5 we see the unfolding;

“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.”

Anyone who has been involved in an adoption knows there is a mountain of legal red tape to wade through. Christmas marks the beginning of Jesus’ handling the legal aspects of our adoption. At “the set time” he came “under the law” to “redeem those under the law.” With this in mind we turn to our text.

“ In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.

God’s design from eternity was to bring many sons and daughters to glory, to adopt them as His very own. Just savor that thought for a moment. Our redemption is part of God’s plan of adopting us. Nineteenth century preacher Robert A. Webb expressed his thoughts this way;