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“While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and
she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.
She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there
was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:6-7).
When someone gives you a gift, they are not only
telling you they care about you.
They are also revealing who they think you are. And they are revealing who they think you
could be. Consider the gifts parents
give to children. Many books are
given at Christmas, because we want our children to be readers. We want to cultivate the skill and
enjoyment of reading. It will
benefit them all their lives. And we
give athletic gear to children as well . . . balls and gloves and bats and rackets . .
. because we see them as athletes and know the exercise and competition and
team playing skills will serve them well.
We give art supplies, because we want our children to be creative,
and maybe chemistry sets, because we see a potential chemist in the bud,
and musical instruments and recordings and players, because music is a life
long blessing.
The gifts we give
to others often reveal who we think they are, and who we think they could
be. It’s a stressful, fearful time
of the year, because with each gift you give, you are offering people not
only your love, but your hopes for them as well. If we choose right, it is absolutely
thrilling. My parents once took a
risk and gave me some beautiful cookware.
They had looked inside my soul and saw a closet cook I didn’t know
existed, but I have enjoyed cooking ever since. If we get it wrong, it is
horrifying. My grandfather, a
sensible Wisconsin dairy farmer, once gave my grandmother a porch light for
Christmas, to replace the one that was broken. He never heard the end of it. So it’s not just an item in a box; it’s a
message in a box.
One day, in a
village six miles outside of Jerusalem,
a young woman gave birth to an infant boy, swaddled him tight in a bundle,
and laid him in a manger. The Word
became flesh. The message is in a box. This box is not wrapped in pretty paper
or a fancy bow, but in this box lays the gift of God’s Son for you and me.
When somebody
gives us a gift they’re telling us they care about us. “God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten Son.” This gift is not to
impress or woo us, or put us in his debt.
He’s giving this gift because he loves us.
When somebody
gives us a gift they’re telling us who they think we are. What does God’s gift to us reveal about
us? In verse 11, the angel said to
the shepherds, “Do not be afraid . . . Today in the town of David a Savior has
been born to you.” So to the
shepherds it’s a gift of a savior.
“Savior from what?” they may have asked themselves. Who knows what answers raced through
their minds? Perhaps, as shepherds,
they felt they needed saving from that dead end job. Hard work, low pay, no respect or status,
lousy benefits . . . but the gift in the box isn’t going to help them one
bit on that account. It’s an infant,
not a brief case full of tightly bound paper money . . . to lift them up
out of their low station in life.
Apparently, God didn’t think that poverty or social injustice was
their main problem.
Who knows . . .
maybe one shepherd thought he needed a Savior from the bursitis in his
joints, which made every movement painful.
Perhaps another thought he needed a Savior from the pneumonia which
was filling his lungs with killing fluid that robbed him of breath and that,
unless arrested, might rob him of life.
But there are no antibiotics or anti-inflammatory meds in the manger. It’s an infant himself quivering for the
cold. Apparently, God doesn’t think that
illness is the big problem for us, even if it is life threatening. But what could be bigger?
Perhaps the
shepherds were looking for a great king, a military hero who would lead the
charge against those dastardly Roman oppressors occupying their land. If that was their hope, they would be
sorely disappointed. Jesus wouldn’t
strike one blow for Zionism. Instead
he taught the people to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and pray for
their enemies and if they strike you on one cheek turn to them the other as
well. He was hardly a patriot; he
wouldn’t even save himself from Roman injustice and cruelty.
So what kind of
Savior is God giving the shepherds? What
does this gift reveal about them . . . and us? The answer is in his name. “Give him the name Jesus” the angel told
his parents, “because he will save his people from their sins.” That’s what the Lord thinks of us. He thinks we’re sinners.
Now we can huff
and puff in anger all we want, we can deny it up and down and pin the blame
on others and swear on a stack of Bibles we didn’t do it, but it’s not
going to change the Lord’s mind. Others
might be deceived by our fussing, but in the end, it’s God’s judgment we
need to worry about, and he seems to think we’re culpable, guilty, and
filthy with sin. If we’re honest with ourselves, we would have to confess
the same. That’s part of the message in the box.
After all, sin
must be a big problem if God would go through all this trouble to take on
human flesh. The message in the box
is our sin must be grievous to him and have grave
consequences to us if God would go this length and even further, to the
cross to address our sin. We don’t
usually take it that seriously. We like
to think God winks at our sin. We’ve nearly convinced ourselves that death
is natural rather than the unnatural wages of sin. And we’ve nearly convinced ourselves that
the devil comes from mythology and hell from fairy tales. But God takes sin, death and hell very
seriously. These things drove him
out of heaven and into a manger . . . and then onto a cross.
A gift reveals
what the giver thinks about us, who we are, but also who we could be! “Come now, let us reason together” the
Lord says in Isaiah. “Though your
sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red
as crimson, they shall be like wool” (Is. 1:18). And from Exodus 6, “I will free you . . .
I will redeem you . . . I will take you as my own people, and I will be
your God . . . and I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand”
(vv.6-8). This infant in the manger
has hopes for us. Jeremiah 29, “I
know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you
and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” And what is that future? 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us
to himself through Christ and gives us the ministry of
reconciliation.” He has big plans
for us. Even now he’s working them
out. John 14, “Do not let your
hearts be troubled. Trust in God;
trust in me. In my Father’s house
are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for
you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be
where I am.” All this and more is given us with this infant.
Ask the shepherds
or others what gift is needed the most and you’ll get all different kinds
of answers. We are easily distracted
by shallow needs. We fixate on them
until we think we can’t live without them being satisfied. But what God thinks we need the most is a
Savior. And God didn’t get it
wrong. This is no porch light lying
in a box. God peered deep inside our
souls and saw what we needed, and sent his Son to be born of Mary and
swaddled up and placed in a manger. “Message
in a Box” . . . God’s love and hope and
future for us in a box. All praise
to him. Amen.
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