Be the Gift

It is December and Christmas is only weeks away  For the Christian Church, it is the season of Advent as we prepare our hearts for Christmas.  It is easy to know that Christmas is coming if you watch television or open your local newspaper because both mediums want to remind the consumer of the fact so they will buy, buy, and buy for friends and family.  Consequently, there are many people who are wondering what gifts to buy.  They wonder:   Will they like the gift?   Will it fit?  Do they already have one?   The questions about gift-giving are perhaps as many as the people we have to buy gifts for

. 

I wonder what would happen if instead of pondering what gift to buy that we pondered how we can be a gift?   While I am certain that many retailers would not like the idea as it might affect their bottom line,  perhaps it would be a better choice.   Why, it might even akin to what Christmas is about.

Most everyone knows the essence of John 3:16.   Martin Luther, the great church reformer, called that passage “the gospel in miniature”.     That passage of scripture begins by saying “God so loved the world that HE GAVE….”     God love and showed the same by giving Himself.    What would the world be like if we gave ourselves: our time, our prayers, our skills, our compassion to the people we love and the world around us?    The essence of Christmas is “God is with us” and becomes human flesh.   Christmas is the incarnation of God in Christ Jesus.   What if we made our gift incarnate in who we are and what we do in the world around us?    When you get right down to us, perhaps the most precious gift we can give anyway is the gift of ourselves.  I commend the possibility to you.    Have a joy-filled week.  --  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God,  we yearn for the essence of Christmas to come to us and to our world.  Forgive us for the times that we fool ourselves into believing that Christmas is only about things and not about You.  Amen.