Gifted
We are all very different people who like to give and receive different kinds of gifts. But though you may be giving and receiving everything from sledge hammers to soup bowls this Christmas, I’ve noticed that there is one thing all our varied gifts tend to share in common—the condition of the gift.
Your gift might be anything from a paintball gun to a pasta maker, but the thing that most of us share in common is that we like our gifts to be new, and we like them to work.
And that makes perfect sense to me. My guess is that if your Christmas gift is used and broken, you probably won't be super happy about that.
And while it’s a pretty straight-forward fact that most of us like our Christmas gifts to be new and we like our Christmas gifts to work, it’s also very interesting to me because, though we are all very much like each other in that regard, we are very different than Jesus.
You may recall that Christmas is Jesus’ birthday. That’s what it is. And like us, Jesus likes to get things. In one sense, that is the reason why He came to earth at all. But, unlike most of us, instead of new and working, the kind of presents that Jesus wants most are always used and broken.
Every time.
As it turns out, that strange little fact is some of the best news in the history of the world.
The thing that Jesus wants for His birthday (and every other day) is us. He came into the world to rescue people.
But we all have this problem, which is that none of us are new and fresh out of the package. If we are being honest, we are not the most desirable gift on the shelf. We are just us. That means that we are used, and we are broken. And even though we can dress up our packaging a little bit from time to time to try to hide how used and broken we are, there isn’t really anything we can do to fix ourselves. No matter how hard we try, we can’t make ourselves new again.
So, we often start to worry because, to the extent that we think about Jesus at all, we think that He surely must want us to get all cleaned up and fixed up before we come to Him because nobody wants something that is used and broken.
But we can never seem to get our selves cleaned up and fixed up. So instead, so often, we just give up.
But here comes that beautiful fact about Jesus.
When it comes to the gifts that He wants, Jesus is not like us. He knows that we are all used and broken, but He came for us anyway. What Jesus wants for Christmas is the exact same thing that He wants every single other day of the year. What He wants is you. And not a fake version of you in which you pretend to be something you're not. Just you. Just as you are.
You may not know it, but God sent Jesus to Earth on His birthday to give you a gift. And what you got from God for Christmas was hope.
Because of Christmas, you can give yourself to Jesus as an unworthy gift, used and broken. And Jesus is going to accept you and love you right where you're at. Then He's going to make you new.
It’s Christmas time, world. Accept the gift.
