Three Readings for Christmas

 

Son John, at age two, was equally definite (though it needed a little translation): “I want a ‘hute-bowe’.” (That’s “football” for those who do not understand Washington Redskin speak.)

 

We all have stories of ironic and sometimes inappropriate gifts, perhaps the most famous being O’Henry’s story of the husband who sold his watch so he could buy combs for his wife’s long hair…while she cut off and sold her hair so she could buy a fob for his watch! (It is said that he dashed that one off while in a drunken stupor, just for the money.)

 

We can think of the girl who wants a bicycle, and gets a dress, instead. Or the boy who wants a basketball and gets a BB gun. Then there is the wife who gives her husband a book with the words, “Let me know when you are finished; I really want to read it myself.” Or the husband who gives his wife a trash-masher. (Somebody said, “It will turn twenty-five pounds of garbage into…twenty-five pounds of garbage!”) And of course there is the toddler who enjoys the wrapping paper more than what is inside it!

 

For me, three simple readings capture some of what Christmas is really about.

 

First, a comment from the Swiss psychologist, Paul Tournier: “The great gift, the unique and living one, is not a thing but a person. It is Jesus Christ himself. In him God has given himself, no longer just things which he creates or has created, but his own Person, his own suffering, his own solitude, given unto death itself. He declared it himself, just before turning to face his cross, ‘Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.’ This gift of all gifts is the self-commitment of God himself, who carried it through to the bitter end so that we may entrust ourselves to it.”

 

Have you ever thought about the sheer vulnerability of God entrusting himself to us as a helpless infant? He who could have crushed us out of anger for our sin instead allowed us to crush him (which is how forgiveness always works)!

 

You know, a gift must be received, as well as offered. Soren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth century Danish existentialist theologian, pondered the mystery in these words:

 

“In paganism man made God a man (the man-god); but in Christianity God makes himself a man (the God-man). But in the infinite love of his compassionate grace he nevertheless made one stipulation – and he can do no other. This is precisely the sorrow in Christ, that he can do no other. He can humble himself, take the form of a servant, suffer and die for man, invite all to come to him, sacrifice every day of his life and every hour of the day, and sacrifice his life itself. But the possibility that men will be offended at him he cannot take away. Oh unique work of love! Oh unfathomable sorrow of love! That God himself cannot, does not, will not, and even if he would, could not, make it impossible that this work of love might not turn out to be for a person exactly the opposite: to be the extremist misery! For the greatest possible human misery, greater even than sin, is to be offended at Christ and remain offended.”

 

And then there is this, written by an eight year old girl, which I found many years ago in a local shoe store:

 

 

In the midst of all the clamor and noise and lights and celebration, may you discover again this year the God who so loved you that if you were the only one who needed him, he would have sent Jesus to be your Lord and Savior and Friend. I wish you and yours a Blessed Christmas.