Luke 2:7 (ESV)
7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
Dear Friends in Christ,
I have a confession to make this evening that I just have to get off my chest because the guilt is about to consume me. Here it is: I got off far too easily this Christmas season when it came to the part of the holidays that we men typically dread. You know what it is, don’t you? We men call it (spoken in a dull tone) shopping. You women call it SHOPPING! My dear wife, bless her sweet precious heart, took it upon herself as she has done for a number of years now to do all the shopping for our Christmas list this season. And I will be forever indebted to her because over the years I have found it harder and harder to find that perfect gift that we go in search of each year for our daughters, our grandchildren, and everyone else that we buy for. Now in all honesty, I don’t mind getting the perfect gift, and I really don’t mind giving the perfect gift. It’s just the search for the perfect gift that I have problems with.
All of which brings me to this particular gift that I have up here with me this evening. As you can see, it has been very nicely and neatly wrapped with some beautiful Christmas paper. You know, I’ve often wondered how much we Americans spend each year on wrapping paper so I checked it out on the Internet and found it to be more than $7 billion. Never mind the fact that you could simply give a present to another person in a brown paper bag or, horror of horrors, completely unwrapped. No, it has to be hidden. It has to be a surprise for the other person. And of course, that’s part of the fun of Christmas – seeing the beautifully wrapped packages beneath the tree, trying to guess what’s inside of them, and then tearing off the paper to reveal their contents.
Well, this evening I want to talk to you about a very special gift that I’m referring to as the perfect Christmas gift, and just for the record I want you to know that this gift also came wrapped, only it wasn’t wrapped anything like the package I have up here. Rather, our text for this evening tells us that it was wrapped in swaddling clothes. Isn’t that interesting? As awesome and wondrous as this gift was, it had no bright and colorful wrapping. Rather it could be found in just a bunch of old cloths, which were made to fit neatly and snugly around this unusual present.
Perhaps that is one reason why the world has been so reluctant to accept and receive this gift. We only like neatly wrapped packages, those with colorful paper and fancy designs. That’s certainly what the Jews were looking for when it came to this gift which God had centuries before promised to send to his people. They were expecting a royal infant, a princely heir to the throne, one who would be born in a palace. This tiny infant, they believed, would grow up to become a super-ruler, much like his great ancestor King David. He would restore Israel to her long-lost glory. He would defeat the Romans and do away with all the injustices that the Jews had endured at their hands. Like Moses, who had once delivered the Israelites from the hand of the Egyptians, so also the Messiah – God’s gift to men – would certainly deliver his people from the tyranny of Rome.
But that’s not what happened. Rather than being born in a palace, God’s gift to man was born in a lowly stable or cave. There was simply no room in the overcrowded inns of Bethlehem for his humble parents, so they were forced to spend the night where the animals were normally kept, out in the barn, so to speak. And it was there that God delivered his gift to mankind.
And whereas our gifts are normally placed beneath beautifully decorated trees glowing brightly with sparkling lights and shining ornaments, God’s perfect gift was laid in a manger, a feed trough out of which the animals ordinarily ate. My, what a contrast between God’s Christmas and ours!
But there’s more. As we continue to look at the package I have up here, not only do we see that it is wrapped with beautiful paper, it also has all the other trimmings with which we like to conceal our Christmas gifts. Seems like the harder we can make them to open, the better. So we place colorful ribbon around our gifts and then we top that ribbon off with a beautiful matching bow. It certainly does make a pretty sight, doesn’t it?
Well, God may have been outdone by us as far as wrapping his gift was concerned, but no way were we going to outdo him in the area of trimmings. The trimmings for God’s perfect gift are described for us in Luke 2:13-14 where it says: “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’” So the angels can be thought of as the ribbon and bow that God placed on his special gift, but interestingly, only a very small and select group of men was permitted to see these beautiful trimmings. We know them as the shepherds – nothing very special or spectacular about them. They were just common ordinary Jews trying to earn a living by herding sheep and other domestic animals. On that first Christmas night they were minding their own business, lazily tending their flocks outside the village of Bethlehem, when all of a sudden the dark stillness of the night was broken by a beautiful angel who brought with him the brilliance of God’s glory and the most important message the world had ever heard, the message that the promised Messiah, the long-awaited Savior, the Son of God had just been born. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere a whole multitude of these heavenly beings appeared, praising God and announcing that his peace had come to earth.
That must have been an unbelievably magnificent sight for those lowly shepherds to behold, and it would have been a terrible shame had they kept it all to themselves. But they didn’t, for as soon as the angelic choir left them, they left their flocks and headed for Bethlehem where they found God’s perfect gift just as the angel had said. And then we’re told they made known abroad all that they had heard and seen on that very special night to anyone who was willing to listen to them.
And what about us, my friends? Are we doing the same? Or are we just keeping this precious gift to ourselves? Many years ago I came across an old saying that for some reason I’ve never forgotten. It goes like this: “If like the shepherds you have heard and seen, then like the shepherds go and tell.” There is a big difference though between us and those shepherds, for we know so much more than what they knew. We have the entire life of this precious gift from God laid out for us in the Bible. That first Christmas night was only the beginning. 33 years later this perfect gift would be hung on God’s perfect tree, the cross that I talked about a few weeks ago in my sermon. And he would die in a most cruel and horrible way, but that death was necessary for through it, death itself was defeated and the sting of death, the fear that it held for us was completely removed.
But getting back to our theme for tonight, what exactly is this perfect Christmas gift that comes wrapped in rags and yet is attended by angels? Well, before we answer that question, I’m sorry, but my curiosity is getting the best of me, so I think it’s high time I open this gift to see what’s inside of it…Wow! Just what I wanted! And hopefully all of you will get what you wanted as well when you open your presents this evening or tomorrow or whenever you get around to it. But even if you don’t get what you wanted, that’s ok because we’ve all received this one perfect gift from God that far outshines all the others. And that gift is described so well for us by the Apostle Paul in Gal. 4:4-5 where he says: “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” So God’s gift to us is none other than his only Son Jesus Christ. God made flesh; God becoming one of us; God giving us himself; that’s what Christmas is really all about. Oh sure, it’s fun to receive and open all the other presents and packages, but we must be careful that we never allow those earthly gifts to overshadow the very human, yet very divine gift that God gave in the manger of Bethlehem.
By the way, did you notice when I opened this gift before, I failed to do something very important? I forgot to check the gift tag to see who it was for and who it was from. So maybe I’d better do that. Let’s see, it was for me, thank goodness since I opened it, and it says here that it was from Santa Claus. Well, whoever Santa Claus was, thank you very much.
But you know what? This gift tag reminds us of the one that God attached to his perfect gift. It can be found in Luke 2:11 where it says: “To you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” So God’s perfect gift is for you and you and you. It’s for all of us and for all people. My goodness, it must have cost an awful lot to send such a special gift to so many people! And indeed it did! It not only cost our precious Savior his throne of glory in heaven where he was worshiped and adored by countless throngs of angels as the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity; it not only cost him his extreme humiliation on this earth, but as we mentioned before, it ultimately cost him his very life. And yet he was willing to pay that price. He was willing to suffer the very pangs and agonies of hell itself just so that you and I wouldn’t have to, all so that we could hear him saying to each and every one of us: “I love you. I forgive you. I died for you so that you could live with me forever.”
“But why?” we want to ask. Why would Jesus do that for us? Why would he go through all that agony and torment for us? We’ve certainly done nothing to deserve such kindness from him. If anything, we’ve done just the opposite. We’ve hurt and offended him by what we have done and by what we have failed to do. We’ve hurt our neighbor instead of helping him. We’ve hated our enemies instead of loving them and praying for them. We have all too often followed the desires of our own hearts and the leading of Satan and left Jesus behind. Why is it then that God the Father would give us this perfect gift in Jesus?”
The answer to that question can be found in what I feel is one of the greatest Christmas verses of all, though we don’t normally think of it that way. That verse is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” So it was only the infinite, incomparable, insurpassable, incomprehensible love of God that moved him to give us this greatest of all Christmas gifts. Why he loves us so much is beyond me. Perhaps it’s because he created us. Perhaps it’s because he feels sorry for us. Perhaps it’s simply because that’s his nature for the Bible tells us that God is love. Whatever the reason, I’m certainly not going to argue with him or try to change his mind, are you? Rather, what we should do is what everyone is supposed to do whenever they receive a gift of any kind. We should thank him. And that thanks should spill forth not just from our lips and our heart, but from the very lives we live. So with the hymn-writer of old let us offer ourselves to God not just this Christmas Eve but everyday of the year and say with the utmost sincerity: “Take my life and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee; Take my moments and my days, Let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my love, my Lord, I pour At Thy feet its treasure-store; Take myself, and I will be Ever, only, all for Thee.” Amen.