‘Adoption is the greatest expression of love I can think of’. So said Brent, a Canadian who was giving a lift to Zainab and Mobeen in the last latest series of Race Across the World. The couple had shared with him their sadness at not having been able to conceive a child after six years of trying. This prompted Brent to share his own story of having been adopted. He said that as a child he hadn’t realised what that really meant, but only that he knew he was incredibly special.
The New Testament is rich with the language of adoption as through Jesus we are invited to become part of God’s family. St Paul writes to the church in Rome that in coming to Christ they did not receive a spirit of fear but rather ‘the Spirit of adoption’ that enabled them to call God their ‘Abba, Father’. Under Roman law an adopted child took on all the same rights and privileges as a natural born child. St Paul is saying that in God’s eyes we become like Jesus his son.
It is an extraordinary gift of God and as Brent so eloquently put it, ‘the greatest expression of love he could think of.’