Christmas is a time for gift giving.
Christmas is a time that's filled with mystery and surprise. We go searching for the very best and most meaningful gift we can afford. We brave the malls and the mad drivers. We tolerate the long lines.
I'm terrible at gift buying. Lara is really good at gift buying. It's her spiritual gift. Her memory is like a steel trap. You mention something and she locks it in. She'll find it, no matter what. I cannot remember anything. If Lara starts telling me what scents of candles or perfume to buy, or tells me to go this store or that store, or tells me to get this size, and that color, and that cut of neck, or fabric, or sleeve, or meat or cheese... I'm toast! Or at least I used to be.
Over the past few years I've developed a photographic memory. Literally! Digitally! She shows me something she wants and, snap, just like that, I take a photograph with my phone. I am so shopping savvy! The playing field is now level!
But then what do we do? The next thing we do is we hide the gifts until just the right moment. We hide them In the closet, behind the couch, under the bed, in the attic, or in the trunk. Lara loves a surprise. She knows exactly where her gifts are "hidden". On the day before Christmas, when I start my shopping, I put her gifts in the middle upstairs bedroom. Usually about December 23 she starts getting nervous. "Jon, aren't you going to get me anything for Christmas? Don't you love me no more?
But then when we get the gifts, what we do is wrap the gifts. My brother Mike is the best gift wrapper I know. He is an engineer who does computer aided drafting. We're pretty sure he wraps up our gifts with his CADD software. Every corner and every fold is flawlessly executed. He uses double-sided tape. Now Lara and I just do gift bags. How many gift bag people do we have here?
But then, at last we give the gift to be unwrapped. We watch as all that hard work gets undone in the span of 3 seconds, and we hope what we've given is well-received. Christmas is all about the ritual of mystery-- surprise, wrapping, concealing, but then revealing.
Christmas is about what's been revealed and unwrapped for the whole world to see.
As Christ-followers, we'd do well to remember that Christmas isn't about what has been concealed and wrapped. It isn't about mystery. Christmas is about what's been revealed and unwrapped for the whole world to see. It's about the surprise that God foisted upon an unsuspecting people at one of the darkest moments in human history.
To this day, people are walking around as if God's gift is still cloaked in mystery. But I assure you, his gift has been revealed for all the world to see. Our chief task is to help people unwrap God's gift for their lives, so that they have an understanding and sense of joy about what's been given.
God is an extravagant giver.
I have to confess that I myself am not an extravagant gift giver. I doubt many of you are extravagant gift givers either. Most of us are pragmatic gift givers. When I was growing up, my parents always gave me gifts to help me learn. They would buy me a computer, or programming software, an electronics kit, a chemistry learning lab, an erector set, or a tool. It really paid off because I am a pastor! Seriously, how many of us are extravagant givers?
God is an extravagant giver. He gave the most costly gift personally he could possibly give. He gave the most meaningful gift the Father could give-- and it wasn't something material you put under a tree. It was his Son, whom he'd chosen before the foundations of the world, that he gave for all the world. God gave his Son, to be crucified on a tree, so that we might believe and have eternal life. God is an extravagant giver. He gave what we'd never dare ask a father to give.
God as revealer.
But God didn't immediately reveal this gift. It remained hidden for generations, from the time of Adam, down through the present age. God in his forbearance left the sins we committed beforehand to go unpunished. Instead, he kept promising that in the fullness of time, at just the right moment, he'd make all things new. We never knew when, but we only knew that God would draw near. From the beginning of time, God invoked mystery and suspense.
Speaking of suspense, have you read the gospels with fresh eyes and fresh imagination lately? Consider how God kept people in the dark before he revealed his gift.
• Some poor old priest named Zechariah is performing his priestly duty in the temple. All at once, he comes out bumbling around, making signs, and is unable to speak. Then his wife Elizabeth, an old woman, becomes pregnant.
• Then Elizabeth's distant relative, Mary, a virgin, shows up on her fiancé Joesph's doorstep and tells him, "Guess what. I'm pregnant. It's not yours. It's God's! The Holy Spirit caused this baby bump."
• When they finally have the baby, Jesus is born in some remote village, in a filthy barn, among animals.
• A bunch of scroungy shepherds show up claiming to have seen and heard an angel of the Lord by night.
• When Joseph and Mary take the baby to the temple to be circumcised, some old man named Simeon, and then a prophetess named Anna, come out of nowhere, praising God, blessing their child, and foretelling great things.
• Then a bunch of astronomers show up, with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, claiming to have followed a star in the sky. Then King Herod goes on a murderous rampage, seeking to kill the child.
So much of what God does is cloaked in mystery. It doesn't make sense at the time. But then in the fullness of time, according to his set purpose, God reveals what he'd have us to see.
God as gift-wrapper.
Speaking of mystery, it's interesting that of all the ways God could have revealed himself, he chose to wrap his divinity in human flesh. This is the testimony of the gospels!
John 1:1-5 (NIV) says,
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."
John 1:14 (NIV) says that,
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
Philippians 2:6-8 (NIV) says of Jesus,
"Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself... "
Colossians 1:15 (NIV) tells us that Jesus is the, "image of the invisible God." Hebrews 1:3 (NIV) says that, "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being..." 1 John 4:2 (NIV) says, "This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God." The mystery of Christ is great. But in Christ God chose to wrap his divinity in human flesh. In Christ, God clothed himself in humanity.
Here is something I found interesting. When Jesus was born, what did Mary do?
Luke 2:7 (NIV) says that,
"She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger." And after Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world, what did Joseph of Arimathea do?
Matthew 27:59-60 (NIV) says he,
"...took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb..." Jesus was wrapped up and given to us.
Christmas unwrapped.
What God wraps is meant to be unwrapped. We're to unwrap the birth of Christ for all the world to see and know! We're to unwrap the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ so that all the world may see! Unwrapping the gift is supposed to be the fun part! It's what's supposed to change everything!
1 Timothy 3:16 (NIV) says,
"Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory." Why not unwrap a little
1 Timothy 3:16 this season?
In
Colossians 1:25-29 (NIV) Paul says,
"I have become (the Church's)
servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness-- the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me."
Gifts were meant to be unwrapped. I hope you'll spend as much time unwrapping God's gift this season as you do wrapping yours. Proclaim him! Make him known to the world!