Reclaiming the Gift

Have you ever stopped to seriously consider the question: "What is a gift?" The New Oxford American Dictionary defines "gift" this way: a thing given willingly to someone without payment. I think that's a pretty good definition, but probably not for the reasons employed by the editors of the The New Oxford American Dictionary.

How should gifts be viewed by Christians? Have you ever thought much about that? I think we need to reform our understanding of what a gift is, because our culture's definition of "gift" is, in actuality, nothing like the dictionary definition and undermines the very thing Christmas is about - the stunning incarnational wonder of the gospel.

In our society, gift giving at Christmas is generally viewed through the lens of social obligation. We each have a carefully crafted list of recipients. Then we create sublists of gift ideas for each recipient. These sublists contain things we hope our recipients will enjoy. Alongside each entry on the sublist, in invisible ink, is our anxiety estimate. We rate each idea not only in terms of how much we think the recipient will enjoy the gift, but we also take note of how much anxiety each idea gives us, should that particular gift idea be received poorly by the recipient. Ultimately, what we choose as a gift for a particular recipient will hopefully maximize the enjoyment of the recipient, while minimizing our perceived anxiety should the gift, for whatever reason, be rejected.

We are, of course, able to judge whether a gift recipient has enjoyed our selection almost instantly based on verbal and nonverbal cues which are, frankly, impossible to conceal. How we formulate our gracious, socially acceptable gift rejection cues will have to wait for another blog post.

In my view, we have largely lost the meaning of the word "gift" in our culture. We actually kill off the wonder of giving gifts because we have become a people consumed with meeting all of the social norms and requirements for a proper "gift exchange." Note that "gift exchange" is a contradiction in terms, at least if you accept the dictionary definition of gift that I cited earlier.

As a result, Christmas can become an insufferable pot of anxiety. We spend weeks worrying about making others happy (which are really worries about making ourselves happy). In fact, gift giving has become, as everything has in contemporary culture, ultimately about “me.” The exchange of gifts has taken on attributes of the contract - both parties must benefit. And that's the opposite of what it means to actually give a gift, because a gift is given without regard to mutual beneficence.

This point was made apparent to me in a recent Wall Street Journal article "The Science Behind Gifting." That word "science" in the headline is a giveaway. The premise of the article is that gift giving can be reduced into measurable categories regarding our perception of the recipient's satisfaction with our gift, as well as our own feelings of warmth and closeness with the recipient. In short, "gifting" as science makes it about the giver rather than the receiver!

This explains why we are always at a loss, and feel guilty, whenever we receive an actual gift. Real gifts give us the heebie jeebies because we are stuck in the only model too many people know - the gift exchange. When we receive an actual gift, what is our response? Part of it is usually spot on: Heck, I didn't deserve this! You shouldn't have! Amen! That's why it's a gift! But then what happens right after that? Guilt drives us back to the model we know ("But, I didn't get you anything"), which gets us plotting a quick response that will somehow get us square with the one who so audaciously broke the social conventions of the gift exchange.

Isn't this an exhausting way to live? How can we ever recover the wonder and joy associated with gifts that are given the way the dictionary, and the Bible, describes?

There is only one way to reclaim our understanding of a gift, and it is cruciform. Christian, you have received the perfect gift (the Father), by the perfect purchaser (the crucifixion of the Son), by means of the perfect giver (the Holy Spirit). We are the utterly undeserving recipients who can in no way reciprocate. The wonder of the incarnational gift of God is that we are cornered and left with only one possible response - joyous praise and worship.

Gospel means good news, and here it is: The utterly unworthy and undeserving have received the perfect gift, God, from God, for the glory of God. Once you understand and believe that, then your own giving will be freed from slavery to social duty and pride, and your receiving will be freed from guilt and inadequacy. Doesn't that sound like more fun than the treadmill of the exchange?

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (Romans 3:23-25 ESV)

The Dragon Is Defeated

Text: Luke 2:1-20

This story in St. Luke’s gospel is powerful, despite its familiarity. It’s a bizarre mixture of earthly things and heavenly things.  The story is nothing less than an account of how God tore open our “boring” reality and came down to us, becoming as we are, ordinary.  He came into the world as we all do, through the birth canal of a woman. He entered the world in an unsanitary place, wrapped in some cloths and laid in the animal trough, a “manger”, the place where livestock slobber.  No fancy bassinet with cushy bumpers for Jesus.  Just the smell of dung and dirty bedsheets.

And amid all of this ordinariness, miracles are breaking out all over.  Not with the landed gentry, mind you, but with the dirty, stinking, low-class shepherds.  Those dudes received as an unmerited gift a fireworks show of Godly proportions.  First one angel, breaking into the night air with the glory of God’s fire all around, speaking the words we sing about each year, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”  The Christ?  The Messiah?  The anointed King of God?  And then the angel said, “And this will be a sign for you.”  At this point, the early readers would probably be anticipating something fantastic, mind-blowing, extraordinary.  Instead, this is the sign, “You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”  What was that?  You just said a king was born?  What on earth is he doing in a trough?  What kind of king is this?  But before the questions could be asked, suddenly the multitudes appear, singing God’s praises for this great thing that has been done. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.”  Thus, any hesitation on the part of the shepherds of the news of a king lying in a manger was wiped out.  Off they went to see for themselves what God announced by means of his angelic messengers.

This is an odd story because it’s filled with things we expect and things we don’t expect.  It’s a strange blend of ordinary human events and ordinary heavenly events (which are highly un-ordinary to us!). We are so familiar with this text that we miss out on its fundamental oddness.  Moreover, we’ve tampered with the story to domesticate it, to make it more palatable.  So now we see images and movies complete with halos, warm, comfy hay, and the glow of the campfire illuminating the cherubic face of the newborn Christ. As a result, we miss the biggest thing of all, the defeat of the dragon!

I know what you’re thinking.  What dragon!?  There’s no dragon here in Luke.  Just nice angels, clad in white robes, bearing harps as they fly through the night sky singing hallelujah.  But why are they singing! What is the reason the story of this ordinary birth is celebrated by God’s heavenly messengers?  The reason for the singing is the defeat of the dragon.

What Dragon?

The dragon is not, of course, explicitly mentioned in the gospels.  He is found, however, in the one other place where Jesus’ birth is mentioned, the book of Revelation.  Specifically, Revelation 12.

[12:1] And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. [2] She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. [3] And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. [4] His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. [5] She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, [6] and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

Are you beginning to see the reason for the angelic celebration? What has happened when Jesus was born?   The dragon was thwarted!  His intention was to devour the means of salvation for humanity. But the infinite, sovereign God outsmarted him.  Instead of consuming the child born of the woman, her son instead goes up to the very throne of God to reign!

Who is this dragon?  Revelation 12 continues thus:

[7] Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, [8] but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. [9] And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. [10] And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. [11] And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. [12] Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

Ah, the dragon is that ancient serpent! The one from Genesis, the one who tempted Adam and Eve, who then disobeyed God, and distorted all of their progeny with sin.  The same one who, despite his defeat, would tempt Jesus in the wilderness.  The same Satan who is my enemy and your enemy, and whose fury is constantly at work in the vain attempt to undo the finished work of Christ.

The Ordinary Birth Is the Defeat of Satan

Now the celebration song of the angels can be understood a bit better, can’t it? What the birth of Jesus represents for you is the defeat of your chief enemy and accuser, Satan. He has been defeated by this child and no longer has any power over you.  The cause of his ceaseless accusations against you, your sin, has been forever wiped out by the blood of the Lamb who was slain.  This little boy, lying in this dingy manger, by his birth, life, and sacrificial death has redeemed you.

I look at this story so much differently now than ever before.  Now I read this account in Luke and wonder that this God we worship would condescend, come down so low, break into our sinful world, and redeem my soul from certain destruction.  Beloved I’ve been so convicted of my sin this week, and how utterly unworthy I am of his grace.  I read this story in Luke and want to cry out, “WHY ME?” Why on earth would you consider me worth saving?  Perhaps you wonder this as well.  You’re here and your family is in turmoil.  You personal life is in ruins.  The reason for that chaos is sin.  Satan, you see, although he is defeated, is still at war with the saints.  The dragon’s time is short, and so he has intensified his attacks in fury and anger. But for those in Christ there is certain victory. For those who are in Christ, all hell can be breaking loose, but the victory is sure and certain.  That is why we rejoice this night!  That is why we sing with the angels!

You may be here tonight in deep turmoil.  The reason for that turmoil is sin.  You are just the kind of person to whom this child came as dragon slayer.  He is here to slay the dragon and all his works in your life – sin and guilt, death, disease, loneliness, and exile.  He invites you into this grand story, where the dragon is defeated by the Light of the World.  He invites you to believe this story, this true story with real dragons and real sin and real death, this story which actually has a real beginning, when a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered, the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria somewhere between late 6 and early 5 BC.  The real story has a joyous ending in his blood shed for you, confirmed and sealed by his resurrection from the dead.  By believing in Him, the bright morning star, the babe in the manger, all is forgiven, past present and future, and a new life of joy and obedience begins.  So come, gather around the manger, and witness the utter defeat of the dragon by this tiny newborn baby, the one who has been swept up into heaven, and the one who will slay the dragon’s hold on your life, if you will only believe in him, the one Lord Jesus Christ.  Believe in Him, trust Him for your eternal security, and the dragon’s claws will forever be struck from your body and your soul, and you will be granted a robe made white by his precious blood.  Believe and be saved and enter into God’s Sabbath rest!  The gift is here.  The dragon has been defeated. As the writer of Hebrews has said:

[6] Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, [7] again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts.”

The dragon has been slain, beloved.  You are invited to come and adore your King, the one who saved, or will save you from the dragon today.  All thanks and praise to God.  Amen.

Given at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Minnesota

December 24, 2010

Christmas Eve

Copyright © 2010 by Christopher Donald Drew

Posted via email from The Central Point