Christmas 1995

Well, is your Christmas tree still standing? Is it still up or have you taken it down and placed it by the roadside yet to be picked up? If your Christmas tree is still standing, does it still have some Christmas presents underneath it? Still carefully wrapped with bows. Well our Christmas tree is still up and we still have presents under our tree. People that we haven't seen yet. Relatives that we haven't been in contact with yet.

We still have Christmas gifts that are wrapped up in a trunk that we picked up from my parents and are to deliver to my brother and his family. Presents still wrapped carefully with a bow all pretty, waiting to be claimed by a recipient. Do you still have Christmas presents for you that you haven't opened yet? Gifts that have been carefully wrapped. Perhaps gifts that you received and you thought that you knew what it was so you just put it up some where and let it sit there and collect some dust. Have you received any gifts that you have not yet used?

When I was in high school I worked in a hospital, a very, very small hospital in Wake County. There in Wake County they have a couple of community hospitals that are a part of the Wake County hospital system. But the one in Apex had about 20 beds. I think it had ten rooms with two beds per room and I worked in that hospital for a while. Because it was such a small hospital with such a small staff everybody knew each other and there would be a Christmas party. People would bring gifts and they would set them under the tree there in the employee lounge. Usually by January you'd begin to see the gifts slowly disappear as people returned to work, or returned from vacation. But it seemed like there might always be one or two gifts under the tree unclaimed. Perhaps somebody went on a leave of absence. Perhaps someone went on a maternity leave, somebody resigned to go to new work. That one Christmas gift would be picked up and moved over to the snack tables so the tree could be taken out.

By about January or February it would have coffee stains on it, where people would be mixing their coffee and spill coffee on the wrapping paper. Before long we didn't know what to do with the gift, so there was a cupboard and stick it in the cupboard. There in the cupboard you see gifts from Christmas' past. There would be a collection of several years worth of unclaimed gifts.

Now these past few weeks, indeed these past few months, I've been speaking quite a bit about the gift of salvation that we have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I've tried to repeatedly to emphasize that it is just that, it is a gift, a wonderful gift of God's grace. Sometimes it's so hard for us to accept that. That it is a gift freely given by God, who's taken this wonderful gift, he's wrapped it up, put a bow on it, pretty wrapping paper and he presents it to us. All we need to do is accept this gift from God. It is a wonderful gift. It's a precious gift. Maybe sometimes we think that it is so precious that we want to be careful not to break it so we put it away. It is a wonderful gift. A very precious gift that must be very delicate and we want to be careful with it that we don't use it all up all at once so we save it. Let's not open it right away but savor it week after week and maybe open just one corner of the wrapping paper and peek and see what's inside. It's wonderful gift. It's a free gift.

You know the letters of Paul use that expression over and over. Even though it may seem redundant, a free gift, a free gift. It's as though the apostle Paul is anticipating that people will have difficulty accepting that it is a gift that comes without a price tag. You don't get this gift by subscribing to a magazine. You don't get this gift by responding to some offer on the television screen. It's a gift that is carefully given, carefully planned out and offered to you freely, without any kind of cost. That is where it remains for so many people. Perhaps like that Christmas gift, carefully wrapped in fancy paper and a pretty bow sitting under a withering tree, sitting on a cupboard collecting coffee stains, put away lest it be misused or broken or discarded.

Christmas is a wonderful season. It's a wonderful time. It's a time that is very busy and hectic for people. You're going to so many different places. When I was the associate pastor at St. Paul church, it seemed like there were so many Sunday School classes, so many circles of the United Methodist Women, so many fellowship groups in the church that I had to go to two or three different activities each evening. My last year there, Jo Anne and I counted up that between Thanksgiving and Christmas we had two free evenings at home. It was so busy and so hectic that when Christmas day came and went we spent the next week just sort of sitting in the den like this. Too tired to do anything. Too tired to look with wonder at what we had been given. Too tired to even think about Christmas anymore.

I was talking to Bonnie, our new secretary, and about half way through December things were really busy, activities taking place in the church and she was trying to squeeze it in the bulletins and make it fit and down towards the end of December she looked at me one morning and she said, "You know, there is a lot that goes on in a church in December." And I said, "That's right Bonnie".She said, "I always wondered why preachers always look a little bit like Scrooge about Christmas time." I said, "That's right." Now she knew the truth. Christmas, it's here, but we spend so much time in celebrating it before it actually comes that when it's here it's like that present that we really don't want to open. We're too tired to receive what has been given to us. The trees will come down, they will be out along the street and Christmas will quickly be forgotten as we enter a new year - 1996. There is a gift, it is a gift for you, it's a gift from God. Maybe it isn't wrapped in fancy paper. Maybe it isn't dressed up in a pretty bow. Indeed when the gift was first given, it was given in the lowliness of a stable. A child, an ordinary looking child. A child who's diapers had to be changed. A child who had to be nursed. A child who's every needs had to be taken care of by earthly parents.

When the shepherds came and looked with wonder upon this child, when the wise men came and looked with wonder upon this child, did they see there in it's simplicity what a wonderful gift that this was from God? Could they see the cost that it brought upon God? The gift of his son. The slaughter of the innocent, those children in Bethlehem? The persecution that would follow of the people who would accept. Could they see the great cost that this gift had to God? Could they see the great joy that it would bring to the lives of countless millions? A gift of peace. A gift of hope. A gift of love. A gift of nothing short but life eternal. That is the wonderful gift of Christmas. Like I said, it may not be in fancy paper or a pretty bow, but by all means please open that gift. It is freely given to you and all you have to do is receive it, accept it, open it, claim it. A new year is ahead of us. Put on the new gift that we have in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen