PAST SERMON 2009 #16
by Reverend Judith Alltree, delivered on Thursday December 24, 2009,
at the Church of the Holy Spirit. (Christmas Eve)
The Gift
What is the nature of a gift? Generally speaking it’s unexpected — unless you are like some people I know who have a very detailed list of things they want, places to buy them, suggested retail price, etc. etc. But in general, a gift is something unexpected. Most often the gift is heartfelt: the giver has put thought and energy into the gift; it’s special, a reflection of the feeling the giver has for the receiver.
In normal circumstances, there is no reciprocity. In other words, the giver isn’t handing the gift over with one hand, while the other one is out waiting to receive one in return! The surprise of the gift, with no warning or intentions, is part of the gift itself. It doesn’t need more than thanks as a return, that acknowledgement becomes part of the gift as well.
And gifts are usually given with a lot of love behind them. Someone wants to do something special, to show their affection, thanks, appreciation, or caring in some way that is unique and reflects the relationship that exists between the giver and the receiver. These are some of the things, which I believe, reflect the nature of a gift.
Christmas time, in both the secular society in which we live and in the Christian part of it that we occupy, is a time for gifts: some are surprises, and some are not. Did you ever get a gift you didn’t expect? You opened that big box, hoping that large multi-carat diamond engagement ring was hidden in a tiny box inside…and instead found a small appliance that was on your list, but not exactly what you hoped for in that moment! Or perhaps you received something else unanticipated, and here I’m not speaking of things in boxes, wrapped with paper: for instance, there’s a knock at the door and a friend you haven’t seen in a long time is standing there, or the mail contains a card from a long-ago love. The phone rings and it’s a voice you needed to hear but didn’t expect to at that moment, and suddenly all is right in your world.
On occasion, that’s what we get as a gift: something unexpected, something unanticipated, and the point is never what is inside the box, or who is at the door; it’s the moment, the surprise, the love and good intentions that are behind the gift, and that changes things: what we receive may not be what we wanted or expected, but it is what we need, it is the best thing for us in that moment because of the love that comes with it.
In a time and place that was about the most backward in history, the Son of God was born. While all the Jewish religious leaders of the ancient Palestinian world were looking up to heaven for the arrival of a fiery chariot, pulled by fierce horses and carrying a mighty and all powerful king to wipe out every Roman soldier from here to kingdom come, God did the unexpected: he chose to come to humanity as one of us, not as a great king but as the most helpless of beings: a tiny human baby. He gave the task of carrying His child to another child, Mary, and the task of guarding both of them to Joseph, an innocent man, full of integrity yet frightened by what this unexpected event would mean in his well-ordered life.
So why would God do that, do the opposite of what everyone expected Him to do? Because that’s what God does. The night of the incarnation, the night God became a human being in the form of his infant Son, was not a night filled with fiery chariots but a deep dark sky filled with millions of stars. There weren’t avenging armies waiting to follow the orders of the Messiah, their powerful master, but a lowly group of shepherds, the outcasts of society, who followed the instructions of God’s Angels. The mother, her husband and the newly born child were not housed in a great, gleaming palace surrounded by servants but in a dirty cave under an inn, where the animals were kept, and the child’s first clothes were not silk and linen but strips of cloth. The scene was in complete contrast to what was expected, and so passed everyone’s attention for the moment. The child was born, the Messiah arrived to the sound of Angels singing, and the silence of the night sky. A Holy Night, a divine night, the most momentous night in the history of the world for with the birth of that tiny infant, the course of history was changed forever.
Human beings are God’s creations: these confusing, noisy, annoying, stubborn creatures, created by God for God to love and to be loved by, and yet somehow this isn’t how things ended up between us. So he sent us this tiny baby boy whose birth we celebrate this night each year, to teach us how to love God, and how to love one another. And for a while we are reminded of that great love, and for a while there is some measure of peace and joy in our hearts, and we remember how good the great gift of Jesus really is.
As you open your gifts in a few hours, great and small, expected and unanticipated, wonderful and perhaps not so wonderful, remember not the gift itself, but the love that comes with it. And remember, too, the love that comes with the greatest gift the world was ever given.
AMEN.