Christmas Eve 2009
A Child is Given

Luke 2:10-11

It seems this is the gift giving time of year. We work day and night to find the right gifts, wrap them in the right paper (or put them in a bag from last Christmas and try to salvage some paper for a birthday gift last month...), hide them in the right spot so no one finds them until Christmas day, and then we smile with joy as our loved ones open the gifts.
Sometimes, gifts are special too. I don't mean a package of meat from some steak company on the Internet or a gift card that puts all the pressure on the recipient to find the right gift, I mean those special gifts. I'm talking about those gift you remember for decades, not days.
Though I may have had many such gifts through the years, one stands out when I think of special gifts. It was July 1976. I remember having my birthday party in the driveway and my front yard. We had strung streamers between the posts of the carport. The actual carport had collapsed the winter before due to snow and ice but the poles were there. We had tables set up for the cake and gifts and a place in the dirt to play with trucks and Army Men. It was a six year old boys paradise. I don't remember what the cake looked like, I don't remember who was there. But I remember the gift.
Oh, I got lots of gifts, probably a model, maybe a cap gun, possibly a shirt or some pants, but after all the gifts had been unwrapped I noticed my dad was missing... then I saw him. Coming around the house with my brand new bicycle. It was a Spirit of '76 Huffy bicycle. It had red-white-and blue streamers coming out of the Ape-Hanger handlebars. It had a banana seat with a red-white-and blue pendent above it. It was my my own bicycle, not a hand-me down, not one that I shared, not one with training wheels. It was mine, a big boy bike.
It would have been the greatest memory of that day had it not been for one other thing... Smokey Joe showed up. Who is or was Smokey Joe? Well, Smokey Joe was a little Lynx Point Siamese kitten. I remember the little guy having to jump through the thick St. Augustine grass and almost disappearing every time it it landed in the grass. It was so cute and cuddly. I wanted to keep him. I wanted a cat. It would make the best gift, or so I thought. Except my sister was allergic to cats, my mom didn't like all the hair, and Dad didn't like all the damage they cause with their claws and cleaning up a litter box. So, my grandmother ended up with Smokey and I got to visit my birthday cat for the following 15 years.
You see, Smokey Joe was a great gift, the Bicycle was a great gift, and I'm sure all the other gifts were great too, but Smokey and the Bike were special, I remember them even now some 33 years later.

There are a few things we need to remember about good gifts, the best gifts, special gifts:
1.They always express the personality of the giver
2.They unfailingly meet a need or desire of the receiver

\ Let's think about those for a moment. I don't think it is any secret that I like to hunt and fish. So, I could give a gift to Renee that expressed my personality well if I gave her a new Diamond Archery Black Ice Compound Bow – Come on, it has 80% let of at 70 Lbs and shoots an arrow at 318fps. But, since Renee doesn't like hunting it would meet neither a need nor a desire of hers.
But the bike I was talking about. It expressed the personality of my parents and it met a desire of mine. It was a great gift.

3.There is something else about a really good gift too. You have to receive it. If you never accept the gift, if you never receive the gift, if you never take possession of the gift then it is never yours.
4. Finally, you have to open it. A gift, no matter how wonderfully wrapped, will never serve it's purpose if you don't unwrap it and discover it's purpose for your life.
In other words, a good gift says something about the one that gives it, means something to the one that is to receive it, has to be accepted, and must be unwrapped and made a part of the life of the recipient.

One Christmas-Eve an older gentleman was driving home after the Christmas-Eve Service at his church. It was bitterly cold and snowing but as he drove down the street he notices a young boy sitting on the curb shivering. He pulled up next to the boy and asked, “Is everything alright?, you need to get out of the cold or you're gonna freeze!” But the boy said, “I ca-ca-can't sir” the man told him he would take him anywhere he needed to go if he would just tell him where he lived. It confused the older man even more when the boy told him that he lived in the apartments behind him, some 50' away. “You don't understand,” the boy explained, “My daddy gave me $5 and this list to run across the street to the store, but it was so cold and the wind blew so hard I lost the $5. I've looked for it everywhere and can't find it.”
The gentleman smiled and said “oh, that's OK, just go tell your dad what happened and he'll give you another $5.”
“Mister, you don't know my Daddy, he's been drinkin' and he gets mean. I can't go home and tell him I lost his $5. He'll get real mad.”
So, the man took out his own wallet, gave the boy a $5 bill, walked him to the store, and helped him gather the milk, bread, and other couple of things. The total came to $4 and change. The man told the boy, “now you take that change back to your Daddy and give him what he wanted.” the boy smiled and started to run home but stopped, came back to the older man and hugged him around the leg and said, “Thank you, I wish you were my daddy.” and then ran on home.
That night that man drove around for several more blocks looking for any other little boys that might have lost $5. It seemed, if only for an instant, that he had found the perfect gift.


I know you are all smart enough to know that I'm not talking about Five Dollar Bills or the gifts that are under our trees at our homes tonight. Some of those gifts will be special and they will bring great joy for a while, others of them will be a disappointment as soon as they are opened. All of them will someday fade like the morning fog.
There is only one gift that is truly special. There is only one gift that will last forever. And that gift is not under a tree tonight. That is the gift that Isaiah spoke of some 2700 years ago when he predicted that “Unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” It is the gift of Jesus, a gift that certainly expresses the personality of the giver, it unfailingly meets a need of the receiver, it is a gift we must receive, and it is a gift that we must make a part of our life to realize the difference it can produce.

There is an Old Scottish Legend about a shepherd boy that was tending the sheep one day when he saw a beautiful flower in the field. He had never seen a flower like it so he bent over, picked it and took in its beautiful aroma. Just then the nearby mountain lifted up as if on hinges and revealed a treasure one could only dream of. There were jewels, and diamonds, and gold, and silver. The boy ran to the treasure and began picking up the most valuable items he could carry. Then a voice echoed through the caverns of the mountain, “Don't forget the best.” The boy looked around to see if there was anything better than what he had in his arms and, deciding that there wasn't he started to leave. Then the voice echoed again, “Don't forget the best”. The boy hesitated for a moment then ran from the mountain cavern with his arms loaded with treasures. As he cleared the mountain it crashed to the ground and he again heard the voice, “Don't forget the best – the flower you left inside.” At that moment the treasures in the boys arms turned to dust. He had forgotten the best, the flower, the key to the vault of treasures.

This Christmas, let us not forget the best. In the giving and receiving of gifts let us not forget that
A baby born one blessed silent night,
Gave us the greatest gift of our lives.

(Some of the stories and thoughts were inspired by Steve Halliday and Ed Young, "And He Shall Be Called... Everlasting Father... Rediscovering the First Christmas Gift."