It s All About the Presence Series: Enter the Story The Rev. Douglas C. Hoglund The Woodside Church Christmas Eve, 2014

Transcription

1 It s All About the Presence Series: Enter the Story The Rev. Douglas C. Hoglund The Woodside Church Christmas Eve, 2014 For a lot of people, Christmas is all about the presents. I think Christmas shopping is somewhat like the quest for the Holy Grail. We re always on the eternal search for the best Christmas gift of all. Yet, if you think back across all your Christmases, I bet there are a few gifts that stand out as complete disasters: Judy from Canada writes, I hinted frequently to my husband how I wanted an electric keyboard for Christmas. Two days before Christmas I was ordered to the kitchen while a delivery truck arrived. The "treasure" was put in the garage and I was ordered to Stay Out. I was so excited. Then, on Christmas morning, I opened the garage door to discover a vacuum cleaner! It took him quite a while to live that one down. Kerry Sims recalls, I got a pocket diary for girls with pictures of ponies on it and I don t like ponies. This was a gift for a 5 year old. I am 12 years old and a boy! A young woman from Ohio writes, When I was 16 I was dating a guy for a month. I bought him some nice cologne and brought it over a couple days before Christmas. He then told me to hold on and he would get my gift. He went to the tree picked up a square box and brought it to me. I was in a hurry and left before opening it. When I got in the car, my friends told me to open the gift. Inside was a Mickey Mouse T- shirt with my name on it in a toddler size! Apparently his 4 year-old sister has the same first name as me. That weasel didn t get me anything and he stole his baby sister s present. The next day I dumped both the T-shirt and the weasel! Men might not always be the best at giving gifts. Women, on the other hand, seem to have a natural ability to find the perfect gift. My wife Lisa always amazes me. She is so good at gift giving that this year she s actually bragging about it. She just bought herself a towel which says, Who needs Santa when you have Grammy? One of her best Christmas gifts to me almost gave me a hernia. It was so heavy that, a few days before Christmas, she made me carry the wrapped gift downstairs and put it under the tree. I could not imagine what this monster might be. On Christmas morning the secret was revealed. Lisa gave me a treasure. She bought me a 200 Watt Peavey Bandit guitar amplifier with reverb and foot pedal. And get this: it s Scorpion equipped. I don t know what that means, but it sounds cool. That was years ago when I was not playing in a Praise band. Without an amp my electric guitar was silent. Never in my wildest Christmas dreams would I ask for such a gift. Yet she knew it would be the best Christmas gift for me. What made it such a perfect gift? It was Unexpected I did not ask her for it. I could not guess what it was. It was not even on my list. It was not what I expected, but just what I needed.

2 2 It was Valuable It was a rather expensive gift. But the best gifts may cost nothing. Its true value lies in how useful or meaningful it is to you and me. It took Effort It was probably as difficult for Lisa to go into a guitar store as it would be for me to buy her clothing for Christmas. I ve tried and we both agree it s better to let Kristin handle the clothing purchases. Best of all, She Put Herself Into the Gift - She knows me: what I like, what I enjoy, what I can use. She invested herself in the quest for something that expresses her love and brings me joy. In other words, she put her heart into that gift. Brothers and sisters, that s the way God gives us His gift the best Christmas gift of all His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is Unexpected. Look at Mary and Joseph: they faced an unexpected pregnancy which came in a totally unexpected way. They were planning a wedding and a quiet life in little Nazareth when the news came to them by angelic courier. Now their lives would never be quiet or tranquil again. The shepherds were at work, doing their jobs, when they got the word about the baby. The wise men were in school, scanning the star fields and studying their scrolls when a celestial sign blazed forth in the sky. The wonder of God s gift can hit you unexpectedly at any time at home, in school, at work. Jesus is Valuable He was not what we asked for, but exactly what we needed. God could have sent another wise king Solomon if that s what the wise men needed. God could have sent another warrior king David who rose from the ranks of the shepherds if that s what the shepherds needed. God could have sent another Moses who started life as an oppressed peasant if that s what Mary and Joseph needed. God could send us a scientist, a philosopher, an entertainer, an economist if what we need today is technology, education, pleasure or money. But today our greatest need is still for Someone to forgive and wipe away our sin, Someone to bring us back to God. What we need is a Savior. That s why God sent the most valuable gift of all, the only one who can save us from sin. The angel said, I bring to you good news of great joy which will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, Christ the Lord (Luke 2:10-11). That s the gift we need in every age, everyday. Jesus Made a Great Effort God creates us, blesses us with life, health, family and home. He invests a great deal of His strength and power to help us and still we turn our backs on Him. We still prefer to run our lives our way, not His way, even if it leads us into danger, destruction and the brink of annihilation. God could give up on us. Let us go. But He loves us too much for that. So instead, He made the greatest effort of all. He descended from the glory, the comfort and the safety of heaven to the poverty, pain and danger of earth. His trip from lofty heaven to this dark planet was not finished when he arrived as a baby in Bethlehem. He would descend even lower to die on the Cross crushed under the weight of all our sin. The greatest effort of all.

3 3 Finally, Jesus Put Himself Into the Gift. Why did God become human in Jesus? The only way He could save is by the Great Exchange. I m not talking about the Great Gift Exchange that happens every December 26 th. This is the Great Exchange: God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus, the pure and holy Son of God, took all our sin upon Himself and, in exchange, placed His holiness inside us. God became human so He could be the bridge for humans back to God. God put Himself into the Gift. God gave us Himself the greatest gift of all. And friends, God s gift is not finished when Jesus dies on the Cross. That gift is not complete when Jesus rises from the tomb. That gift is not yours until you receive Him into your life, until you let Him be born in you, until you make Him your Lord and Savior. It s the greatest Christmas gift exchange of all: God gives His life for you and, in return, you give your life to Him. Believe it or not, every Christmas there are millions of people who fail to use a Christmas gift. Consumer Reports found one out of every five gift-card recipients didn t use their cards last year. Between 2005 and 2011 $41 billion dollars in gift cards were unused. The top reasons for not using gift cards include: Haven't had time: 50 percent Haven't found anything I wanted: 37 percent Lost the card: 14 percent Card expired: 12 percent 1 It s like refusing the gift someone gave you. On the first Christmas there were some who refused the best Christmas gift of all. King Herod thought he didn t need a Savior. He wanted to run his petty, pitiful little kingdom his way. So he tried to destroy the gift. The scribes and chief priests in Herod s court couldn t be bothered with God s gift. These religious leaders had God all figured out. They didn t need an unexpected Messiah born in a manger. The hustling, bustling crowds of Bethlehem could care less about the best Christmas gift of all. They had parties to attend and business to transact. They completely missed it. Even today, people miss it. They treat God s gift like a gift card I don t have time for him, He s not what I want, I lost my faith in him, I don t think he ll forgive me, His offer has expired. But that s not true. His gift never expires. Tonight, you don t have to miss it. The best Christmas gift of all can be yours for all eternity. Every gift under every Christmas tree will one day break, rust, rot, and be thrown away. Jesus is the only gift guaranteed by heaven to last for all eternity. The only thing you must do to receive it, is to let Jesus save you from all your sins and let Him lead you as the Lord of your life. Christmas is all about the presence: God with us now and forever. Don t throw His gift away. 1 Jae Yang and Adrienne Lewis, "Americans Neglect a Billion in Gift Cards," USA Today ( );

4 4 Robert Fulghum tells a story entitled, What My Daughter Taught Me About Love in which he almost missed one of life s greatest gifts. It goes like this: One of my keepsakes... is a small paper bag. Lunch size. Though the top is sealed with duct tape, staples and several paper clips, there is a ragged rip in one side through which the contents may be seen. This particular lunch sack has been in my care for maybe 14 years. But it really belongs to my daughter, Molly. One morning, Molly handed me two bags. One regular lunch sack and the other one with the duct tape. Why two bags? The other one is something else. What s in it? Just some stuff take it with you. At midday, while hurriedly scarfing down my real lunch, I tore open Molly s bag and shook out the contents. Two hair ribbons, three small stones, a plastic dinosaur, a pencil stub, a tiny seashell, two animal crackers, a marble, a used lipstick, a small doll, two chocolate kisses, and 13 pennies. I smiled. How charming. Rising to hustle off to all the important business of the afternoon, I swept the desk clean into the wastebasket leftover lunch, Molly s junk and all. There wasn t anything there I needed. That evening, Molly came to stand beside me while I read the paper. Where s my bag? What bag? You know, the one I gave you this morning. I left it at the office, why? I forgot to put this note in it. She handed over the note. Besides, I want it back. Why? Those are my things in the sack, Daddy, the ones I really like. I thought you might like to play with them. You didn t lose the bag, did you Daddy? Tears puddled in her eyes. Oh, no, I just forgot to bring it home, I lied. Bring it tomorrow, OK? Sure thing don t worry. As she hugged my neck with relief, I unfolded the note that had not got into the sack: I love you Daddy. Oh. And also Uh-Oh. I looked long at the face of my child. She was right what was in that sack was something else. Molly had given me her treasures. All that a 7-year old held dear. Love in a paper sack. And I had missed it. Not only missed it, but had thrown it away because there wasn t anything in there I needed. Dear God. It wasn t the first or the last time I felt my Daddy Permit was about to run out. It was a long trip back to the office. But there was nothing else to be done. So I went. The pilgrimage of a penitent. Just ahead of the janitor, I picked up the wastebasket and poured the contents on my desk. After washing the mustard off the dinosaur and spraying the whole thing with breath freshener to kill the smell of onions, I carefully smoothed out the wadded ball of brown paper and put the treasures inside and carried it home gingerly, like an injured kitten. Sometimes I think of all the times in this sweet life when I must have missed the affection I was being given. A friend calls this standing knee-deep in the river and dying of thirst. So the worn paper sack is there. Left from a time when a child said, Here this is the best I ve got take it it s yours. Such as I have, give I to thee. I missed it the first time. But it s my bag now.

5 5 At Christmas, our Heavenly Father reached across the stars and said, Here this is the best I ve got take it it s yours. He handed us his greatest treasure wrapped, not in a paper bag, but in the flesh of a new born baby. God paid the highest cost of all when he gave us His love wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. Sometimes, in our anger and fear, we throw his gift away. Sometimes we simply miss the miracle. We miss the note that says, I love you. But maybe this is the year and this is the day to make that long journey back to Bethlehem, to kneel at his manger, and to receive the best Christmas gift ever given. God gave Himself to you. This Christmas, why not return the favor? Amen.