σημείοι

There have been a lot of babies born this year. To my friends, four so far, with another two or three yet to come. Today I had the privilege of meeting again one of the most recent of these; her parents call her their miracle, and she is.

As I was looking at this child today I suddenly began to see her in a different way than I have seen babies before. I saw her not as a small, as-yet preciously undeveloped life, but as being, behind those sleepy eyes, already that person she will one day surely be, only given the time; not like a seed, which grows to become something different, but as something which merely has yet to unfurl. Just as this child's parents waited expectantly for her birth, so now they desire with equal fervency not only to see revealed what this life is to become, but also to see her born again and to see that life unfurl.

Her father talked to me about change, and the hope which promised future change provides. Birth is a miraculous change which heralds the unfolding of a new life; salvation, the second birth, is an even more miraculously impossible change which heralds the unfolding of a new eternal life, and holds the promise of the coming resurrection. Two births, two lives intertwined, each a miraculous gift from God.