The Expected Gift

Hope you all out there in the blogosphere had a wonderful Christmas day and weekend.  We got to spend it with two of our daughters live plus one via Skype (ah the wonders of technology – we put the video cam up and it was almost like she was with us) and our son-in-law.  I have noticed as we get older, the wonder and importance of actual gift giving is less in importance.  In fact, our kids tell each other what they want (not so unusual), but then tell each other what they got the other (very unusual).  Strange if you ask me. 

I have wondered what the scene was at the first Christmas as the long awaited Messiah was born.  Israel had been in darkness for over 400 years – the 400 silent years eagerly anticipating the Messiah, the “expected one”.  At the birth of Jesus, a heavenly throng appeared to shepherds praising God (Luke 2:14).  Yet Jesus was born into relative obscurity.  Yes, even the historians don’t give much lip service to King Herod’s view of the kingly threat.  The slaughter of a few infants and babies in a small town of Bethlehem hardly draws any attention.  Jesus was expected, but not expected.  People had their own notion of what the Messiah can or should be.  Who is this Christ?  More importantly – who is He to me?  The Light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:5).  Pat Morley says “there is a God we want and there is a God who is and they are not usually the same God”. 

The obscurity of Jesus eventually transferred to the hostility towards Jesus. You see now expectations were high for a certain type of Messiah and Jesus did not fill the bill.  The Roman conquering, nation building Jesus was not on the radar.  Jesus did not even come close to that perception – in fact, he preached obedience toward government.  Ignorance transferred into outright hostility.  No one wants to admit that the issue is with me, myself, and I.  I need a gift and the gift I need is a paid debt.  It is hard to get your head around a gift that is a paid debt.  Totally unexpected I think.  It doesn’t make for a very nice gift.  I can imagine someone putting a mortgage under the tree with the stamp on it “PAID”. Would I look at it as a gift?  Kind of like receiving warm clothes when you are a kid.  You know you need them, but it doesn’t meet the pleasure factor.  Not expected, not valued. 

I think I would look at it any differently if someone gave me the money and then I paid back the debt?  I probably would because I would somehow rationalize it that I earned that money to pay off the debt.  God sees our sin debt as insurmountable, something that simply cannot be paid off.  He also sees us as incredibly valuable something deserving of the highest value He can give.  Those two are mutually exclusive but God makes it possible.  A gift of incomparable value to pay off an insurmountable debt.  Not a bad gift after all.

A very blessed belated Christmas to you all!