Christmas hope, unwrapping the Gift

There were no wrapped presents for me underneath a sparkling Christmas tree. In fact, in my early years, we did not have a Christmas tree in our home. 

Christmas Eve, all of us kids would pick out a mixing bowl – preferably the biggest one we could find – and set it on the dining room table. Inside the bowl, scribbled on a scrap of paper, was our name. 

Christmas morning came, and we jumped out of bed and headed for the dining room. Like each year before, there was a mound on the table, with a blanket covering the surprises underneath. 

We all knew that we could not remove the blanket; that was mom and dad’s job! And no peeking allowed! So we waited while Dad finished the chores, the family had all gathered, and a Christmas carol had been sung. Then together, mom and dad lifted the blanket. There it was!! All our gifts, unwrapped, were revealed in one magic moment, surrounding the mixing bowl we had put out the night before. The bowl was full of candies, peanuts in the shell, a Christmas orange or two, a new colouring book and crayons! 

It’s nostalgic for me to remember these sweet Christmas memories of how my parents presented gifts to us kids in the Mennonite tradition. (I really couldn’t tell you how this tradition began, possibly because the Christmas tree was considered an idolatrous thing at one point among stricter Mennonites). 

I haven’t passed this tradition on with my kids, though it definitely would be much simpler and less time-consuming not to have to wrap each gift! Yet, there is something exciting about unwrapping gifts one at a time, drawing out the anticipation. 

It’s been said that the baby Jesus, born in the stable so many years ago, is the greatest gift ever given to humanity. The Christmas story of the unfortunate couple who gave birth to a baby in a barn is as common to us as the yearly school pageant.

Can this story still be applicable today, or do we shelve it along with Santa and the elves as a fantastical part of the season?

Who was this Child?

It’s a historical fact that the man Jesus lived and died. CS Lewis in Mere Christianity writes this fascinating quote:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

The baby, wrapped in humanity, was God’s Son, come into our world in the most unassuming, unpretentious way. Most would imagine a God-sized production for such an appearance, but God doesn’t work how our minds expect. Not until we recognize this can we unwrap the extraordinary gift given that long-ago night.

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (which means “God with us”)

Matthew‬ ‭1:23‬ ‭NIV

Did you catch that? The child will be called Immanuel, which means “God with us”!  

God with us in our broken messy.  

God with us in our joy. 

God with us through our pain. 

God with us in our indifference. 

God does not promise to make our life free of struggle, but he promises to be with us in it. And herein lies our greatest hope!

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.

Psalms 42:11

The Bible shows us who the baby Jesus is. He is God with us. His coming has an unparalleled significance, a Hope that is not wishful thinking but a steadfast and certain thing.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might recieve adoption as sons.

Galatians‬ ‭4:4-5‬ ‭ESV‬

 Christmas reminds us that the Hope of all hopes has come to walk beside us

Come! Let us go to Bethlehem and unwrap this life-changing gift!

When the angels left them and went back to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem. Let’s see this thing that has happened which the Lord has told us about.

‭‭Luke‬ ‭2:15‬ ‭NCV‬‬