Unwrapping Christmas Part 1

“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:3).

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).

Christmas advertising has one thing right. The buzz, glitz, glamour, enticing, crooning of radio ads, all speak of one truth: lack. They play on our lack of wants, and hide the deeper glaring truth: we need. We lack. We are bereft. No matter how many gifts pile under the tree in shiny bright paper, no matter how many dishes crowd the dining room table, no matter how many dinner rolls sit too heavily in the stomach, no matter how full the calendars are: we need.

"Kissing the Face of God" by Morgan Weistling

Weakness, cancer, miscarriage, global news sweep in and remind us we are finite, dependent beings. Physically, we need. Emotionally, we need. But we cavil with the reminders of weakness with bright glittery paper. Hide our finitude under garish colors and gaudy bows.

Yet, perched on the corner table—a nativity. Centered around a baby. A baby, weak and needy. Mighty God, free in his power and glory, complete in his Triune being of joy and relation and love,

Enters weakness

Becomes poor

Knows rejection, tiredness

Touches the lepers, broken, cast offs

And assumes their leprosy, lameness, rejection

On himself

Even to the point of death.

Incarnation.

He cast off his robe of glory, dons the clothes of a carpenter, attires himself the shame of the abused, drapes on the horror of leprosy and cancer as he touches them, garbs himself in rejection of the tax collectors and prostitutes, so that we might know the robes of salvation and the garments of praise (Isa. 61:10). Our neediness is wrapped up in his strength; not hidden under a flaunting silver ribbon bow and the snazzy colored paper.

Incarnation shapes our life. “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor. 5:14-15). Christ is the true Adam, the true human, and the head of a new people (1 Pet. 2:9; Titus 2:11-14). So we follow in his footsteps, take up our cross daily, lose our life, know the fellowship of his sufferings, find his power in our weakness (Lk. 14:26; Phil. 3:10; 2 Cor. 12:9-10).

Will we let our God-Man Savior shape our life? Will we follow the incarnated God? Will we so love him that we unwrap the glitzy tinsel to really embrace the gift of humility of his carpenter’s nails, his touching the leper, his eating with the numerous commoners that aren’t recorded in the gospels?

Beneath the paper, we admit we are empty. We are bereft—incapable even of showing true mercy, of living justice, of walking humbly with our God. Selfishness, fear, anger, pride puff us up in an attempt to fill the wrapped box. Mercy, justice, love, sacrifice—it is Christ in us who allows these. Not more to-dos on the already busy Christmas calendar, these are a gift of Christ in us. We can possess these traits only to the degree that we are possessed by him, the self-emptying God (1). We become like little children to enter the kingdom of the one who became a child.

The malls, internet ads, commercials, radio blurbs, billboards, posters all define gift, strength, good, need, want, privilege. Words and ideas they wrap up and present shining. Yet, from God’s first creating word, he defined. Light. Earth. Life. And he defines grace, strength, good, need, privilege, mercy, weakness. Christ himself defined them, revealed them in their essence in his incarnation. God lived out the defining. Self-giving was the character of God from those very first Genesis words of God created.

The ads tout the slogans of giving the very best to a loved one, a family, or yourself. You deserve the best they cheer away with jingle bells and Santa’s elves. God gave his best—himself in his Son and in his Spirit. To whom? His enemies. Those who had rebelled—me. Those who had robbed him of his due worship—me. Those who had told him his way wasn’t best, good enough, wise enough, whatever enough and discarded his god-ness like crumpled up wrapping paper—me. God squandered his love on a world in which many ultimately rejected him. God squandered his power to heal on the lepers that all had given up on. God squandered his power to heal on a broken woman forgotten by the world in her uncleanness while the nobleman waited impatiently (Mark 5).  God squandered his three years of training on a group of fisherman and a tax collector and a zealot the rabbis had rejected. God squandered his miraculous provision of bread on a crowd who left the true Bread of the World grumbling. God squandered his love washing the feet of Judas. God squandered his love on people who could never pay him back.

by Brian Jekel

Our prodigal God. Our incarnated God. Our God in a manger.

And we? Will we give our best for the homeless on the streets? Will we squander our love for those society rejects and forgets? Squander our time visiting the elderly lady who may not remember our name next week? Will we give our best for the worst, the prodigals, the outcasts, the rejects, the underprivileged, the stupid, the ones who the world doesn’t think are worth it?

Not for rewards or for a heroic sense of duty, but because we love Jesus. “But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Lk. 14:13-14). Our repayment—we are like him and we shall be like him for we have seen him in part, though dimly, and we shall see him (1 Jn. 3:1-3; 1 Cor. 13:12). We love Jesus, and we are made like him—the incarnated God in the manger, God’s best for the worst.

The incarnated God—and he stoops down, unwraps all the things we try to decorate ourselves with and fancy ourselves up with to hide our weakness, and he grants us the gift of weakness. Bereft in ourselves. And fills us with himself—possessed by him, we possess all. Possessing all, we give all.  

Incarnated God, all in all.

While [the forgotten] shepherds watched their flocks by night,

All seated on the ground,

The angel of the Lord came down,

And glory shone around, and glory shone around.

NOTES

(1) Thank you to J. Todd Billings, Union with Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011).