The Unwanted Gift

Christmas Eve - December 24, 2007

When I was small, money was tight and Christmas presents were few and each one was savored.

I spent hours pouring over the Sears catalogue, knowing full well that none of those things would appear on Christmas morning.

But one box that did appear each year contained a long-sleeved plaid flannel shirt.

It wasn't a present that I particularly wanted, but one that I needed to help deal with a drafty one-room schoolhouse.

Oh boy, Santa knew just what I needed, or was that grandma? Merry Christmas.

The gift not wanted,

but the gift truly needed:

that is the theme of this night.

We could say that it is all tied up in the name that the angel announced to Mary:

Jesus (translated from its Greek form) or Joshua (translated from the Hebrew).

It means O Lord, save!

or The Lord is salvation.

Taken as a statement, the name Jesus, then, is an announcement of the truth of the ultimate purposes of God.

Translated as O Lord, save! it is the fervent prayer of every believer: O God, make good on your promises, and do it now!

We've been through the times of expectation and waiting; a gift is coming and is now come among us, Jesus himself.

This is the gift we truly need in order to get along from day to day;

but it may be the gift that we really didn't want so much.

For this Jesus is determined, once he gets hold of us, to make us over,

to transform us from what we have been into what we will finally be.

Generally, our prayer has been, “Lord, save me...but leave me pretty much as I am.”

The prophets of old and the evangelists also have made it clear that this attitude is not sufficient or appropriate.

To receive the gift of Jesus means that we need to remind each other,

“Watch out! Things are going to be different with us, starting right now, and being completed in the fullness of God's time with us.”

Another way of looking at the gift that we are not sure that we want is to talk about one of the titles given to Jesus,

Christ in Greek or Messiah from the Hebrew.

It calls to mind all of the ancient longing of Israel:

Messiah– the one to whom the Father gives the throne of David, the one whose kingdom is without end.

Messiah – the one who comes as the culmination of the history of God's actions with his people, the one who shows that God keeps his word.

Messiah – the title which catches up all of the past and binds it to the future of God.

Messiah, the Christ—the name that rips like lightning through the way things have always been.

Messiah is the trumpet which announces that history has purpose and meaning;

we are heading in a particular direction, following a certain voice.

Is this a gift that we want?

It is a gift that we need.

III.

Another of the titles given to Jesus expresses yet again the gift that we are not sure that we want.

Jesus is Lord. is the earliest form of the creed, one that appears in scripture itself.

There are many who say that we ought to give up this title.

Those with the power of publishing are eliminating the word from hymns and other materials as much as they can,

because it has allegedly been so misused over the centuries, caught up in the power struggles of mankind, slavery, oppression, brutality, and self-centeredness.

But just because we misuse power is no reason to assume that Jesus does!

Jesus uses power lovingly, in perfect wisdom, for the sake of those who call him Lord and are his servants.

Jesus purifies the title, and makes it wonderfully true.

To know Jesus as Lord is a gift worth having.

It releases us from ultimate worry about ourselves and others; we can entrust all of those worries to the one who finally is Lord.

One of the times that I remind others of this gift is in that last visit before surgery, when all of the tests and plans have been made and the best judgment and decision is reached to proceed, and the prayers have received their Amen, then we can say

“When you awake from surgery, either you will be restored to us we hope in a better condition than you are now, or else you will be full-time with Jesus. Either way, you win, because Jesus is Lord of all time, every place, and each situation.”

Walt Wangerin has pointed out a bit of word-history that we have completely forgotten.

The English word Lord is actually a contraction of two old Anglo-Saxon words which are loaf-ward or bread-keeper.

From the loaf-ward the people receive daily bread and sustenance.

There is power here, power used carefully for the good of the whole community.

The one who is the Bread of Life is also Loaf-ward, giving himself in the Holy Communion.

If we were ever not sure that Lord is a gift we want, it is surely a gift we need.

And there is yet another pair of titles which our great story this night uses, and these should be whispered with the greatest wonder: Son of God and Child of Mary.

We ponder the mystery of how this can be so; --that God would care so much about us,

--that he chooses to humble himself in this way,

--that he is this determined to get through to us.

God and man at one and the same time:

He is God, begotten before all worlds from the being of the Father, and he is man, born in the world from the being of his mother--

existing fully as God and fully as man....

he is not divided, but is one Christ....

completely one in the unity of his person, without confusing his natures....

as the Athanasian Creed phrases it.

We're not sure that we want God quite this close to us.

Is this a gift we really want?

But it has been shown across the ages that this is the gift we truly need: Emmanuel, God with us,

God understanding everything there is to know about us,

God facing every trial, heartache, and sorrow that we can know,

God conquering that final enemy, death from the inside out,

God inviting us into that new life, that resurrected life, with hints and samples of it even now.

Jesus, the Lord is salvation,

the Messiah, the Christ,

Lord of all,

Son of God and Child of Mary...

a fearsome gift,

a wonderful gift,

the greatest gift of all.

Let all who hear it,

receive it with joy. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.