A Package Too Big for the Wrapping Paper

We bought gifts, wrapped them (least Andra did), and then they were presented to the giftee, and oh what a joy. A gift given from someone in love, and many times given beyond what we feel like we deserve. That is the thing with a gift. It is not about manipulating for position to be the best "gift giver", but just a gift from the heart. I love buying gifts when I have money for them, and I love receiving gifts that are unexpected. It warms my heart. God gave us the gift of Jesus, and oh what a gift of love He is and always shall be. The shepherds went to the place where Jesus was born, as the angels had told them, and they experienced God's gift firsthand. Luke 2: ¹⁶ And they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen Him, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. ¹⁸ And all who heard it were amazed at the things which were told them by the shepherds. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. ²⁰ And the shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.

There it is, right there in the Word of God. Jesus was born, and He came in a very small human package, a baby. The wonderful thing about the baby being born was that the package was going to grow into an adult and live as a man, even though He was fully God, and at just the right time, He would change everything for everybody. This package, Jesus, was too big to be held in a small package. The very small size of the baby was not an indication of what was, but what was to become. Salvation for the world is offered as a free gift for all men. I have two words to say to this act of love: ONLY GOD!

The commercial story so many follow cannot minimize the size of the gift we know as Jesus, the Savior of the world. Oh, I get the Santa stuff for the kids, but like us, they have to grow up to the fact that a baby was born to live and die for the sins of mankind, and God was behind the whole thing, in love. What about that love? Jesus spoke about the love of God in John 3: ¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. The greatest expression of love by the creator of all things was to give His son for you and me! You cannot giftwrap that big enough to contain it, so don't try. Just don't minimize it by calling it a holiday!! Don't take the name of Jesus Christ and call it the holidays. Just don't!

God promised through the prophet Isaiah that the birth of Jesus would happen, and it did. Isaiah 7:¹⁴ Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will name Him Immanuel. Immanuel means "God with us", and the baby was no less God with us and no less God with Mary and Joseph and all who came to worship Him in Bethlehem. In the above verses, we see their reaction to the birth. Luke 2: ²⁰ And the shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them. When they met the baby Jesus, they met God, and that could not be held wrapped in swaddling clothes that were warm for the baby. The fire was going to spread from that moment, and we live in the glow of that fire today. We should never pour water on it, because it will not be contained.

What has been the result of your receiving Jesus' forgiveness and new life? Has the joy been "tamped down," and the embers are there, but needing the breath of God to let that fire grow more and more? Is the gift still in the wrapping paper, or when you opened the gift, you let it out in your life, and it is way beyond the wrapping paper? The story is not just a story at all, but a very present life-altering act of love that encompasses everything we think and do. We live in the same promises of God today as we anticipate the return of Jesus, and like those who rejoiced at the birth of the baby, we too rejoice in the truth of Jesus' return. We are ready for His return, and here is what Jesus says we will be like in light of that fact. Luke 12:³⁵ “Be prepared, and keep your lamps lit. ³⁶ You are also to be like people who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door for him when he comes and knocks. ³⁷ Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will ^[z]prepare himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and he will come up and serve them. ³⁸ Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. ³⁹ “But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. ⁴⁰ You too, be ready; because the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not think He will.”

The Pilgrimage Continues,

David Warren