A Tiny Gift

In the birth of Jesus, God has delivered an indescribable gift to us.

Today is the third message in our 2022 Advent series The Wonder of Jesus' Birth. Many of the thoughts are borrowed from Pastor Chuck Swindoll.

Since the Christmas season began, one word has been spoken more than any other. Maybe you haven't stopped to think about which word that was. I don't think it's the word joy or carol or tree or food. I think it's the word gift. If you listen in on conversations in stores and on parking lots all around , I'm sure you'll hear the word mentioned several times in a conversation. Most of us have lists of gifts we hope to buy or make. Some even have lists of gifts they hope to receive.

I'd like you to turn to a unique Christmas verse: 2 Corinthians 9.15 “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” Because it is not found in the normal sections about Christ’s birth, we often don't think of it in light of Christmas. Personally, I think it ought to appear on every Christmas card. I think it describes the gift of God to us. "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!"

This verse was written by a brilliant man who trained under Gamaliel, a rabbi: Saul of Tarsus, who was well respected in his day. He had a broad vocabulary. He was a master of the Greek language. He was an excellent communicator. And yet, he surprises us when he comes to this simple four-letter word "gift" and says it is indescribable.

Paul chooses a term that is used nowhere else in all of Scripture. Paul chose the word indescribable as unable to be declared. Why is it indescribable? Why is this gift too awesome for words? After all, we’re talking about a baby. Yet, because he was not conceived naturally, nor was this an ordinary baby, the scholarly Paul says it's indescribable.

Turn for a moment back to Luke 2:6. Dr. Luke continues his account much like a physician would fill out a report. Almost a matter of-fact manner, one translation reads: "It came about that while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths. She laid him in a feeding trough, because there was no room for them in the inn." Here they were in a stable surrounded by a few animals and straw, and for the first time in all of time she looks at God face to face! Mark Lowry’s song, Mary, Did You Know? comes to mind. Standing nearby was a man who had nothing to do with the conception. He did not even at that moment know that woman intimately. He had simply believed the word of the angel: "What has happened to this woman to whom you are betrothed is of God. Believe me. Believe God." And he did. Not a trained, deep theological thinker, this carpenter was most likely in amazement. She gave birth and she placed him in a feeding trough. But first, please observe, she wrapped him.

For some reason, many get caught up in the wrapping of God's gift. Some people seem to have a lot of fun wrapping. They put one box after another inside one box after another, each one carefully wrapped with ribbon to bring you from one massive gift down to a tiny ring. And some gifts you cannot seem to hide even though you wrapped them carefully, such as a basketball or a shovel.

The baby Jesus comes wrapped in prophecy

How do you wrap an indescribable gift? What material do you use? She wrapped him in cloth. She came prepared for that. Before that, this gift was wrapped in prophecy. God doesn't just suddenly drop Jesus Christ out of heaven to earth. I mean he prepares humanity for his coming hundreds of years ahead of time. Listen to a few prophecies.

Turn to Isaiah chapter 7.14. "Therefore Jehovah himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name God With Us." You wrap something indescribable in something as powerful as prophecy and you have people anticipating his arrival. Chapter 9, verse 6: A child will be born to us. What will be his name? We read that the government will rest on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Shalom Prince. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of his peace on the throne of David or over his kingdom to establish it, to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forever more.

To whom would that refer, if it is not Messiah? No one fits that description except the indescribable Gift. The Jews held on to those prophecies down through time. Chapter 11 continues with more: A shoot will spring up from the stem of Jesse. A branch from its roots will bear fruit. And the spirit of the Lord will rest on him. He will be distinct. He will be unique, as we continue to listen. Upon him will be the spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, and strength-the spirit of knowledge and the fear of Jehovah. He will delight in the fear of Jehovah. He will not judge by what his eyes see nor make a decision by what his ears hear. With righteousness he will judge the poor and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth. This Hebrew poetry is beautiful. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips will he slay the wicked. It's all intensified. Righteousness will be his belt. Faithfulness will be about his waist. Look at the beauty of that prophecy. Here we have a gift that comes through the womb of the Virgin Mary, but centuries before this, there was a prophet that said, "Righteousness will mark his life-godliness, the fear of Jehovah. He will with fairness judge the poor and the rich alike. He will be like none other."

Isaiah is at a loss, as we skip to chapter 53. He's asking who will believe this message? He's living among a people of unclean lips. He knows his times. He says: "Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Isaiah has given all kinds of descriptions of Him. He will grow up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him. Nor appearance that we should be attracted to him. But that isn't what made Jesus Christ significant. He looked like any other Jew of his day. As a boy he looked like any other carpenter's son. His appearance had nothing majestic about it. There was no shining glow about him, like the artists used to present. It was God who came in the form of a man, don't forget, not man in the form of God. He drove a nail just like anyone else. He worked with wood and stones like anyone else. He wasn't a man from whose hands miracles took place, until his ministry began. He was just another man from all outward signs. He was despised and forsaken, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We did not esteem him. How do you wrap an indescribable gift? You wrap him in this kind of honest prophecy.

You prepare the heart of people for an indescribable gift by wrapping him in the prophecy of Micah 5:2: "As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah …" His goings forth are from long ago, from eternity. Can you imagine a rabbi looking through the text, reading through the scrolls of Micah and coming across chapter 5, verse 2. Can you imagine looking through the text and reading this prophesy, while scratching his head and thinking, My, he will come from Bethlehem!

But you see we've got a little bit of a problem. We've got a couple that lives in Nazareth, and this says they will come from Bethlehem.

The baby Jesus comes wrapped in history

Go to Galatians, chapter 4. Because with this indescribable gift, you must also wrap him in history. Prophecy, being what it is, must have its way woven into history. And that's God's job, and he is a master at it. He is sovereign over our times; he knows what he's about. And so he begins to weave history together so it dovetails right into prophecy. Skeptics scoff at that; calling us foolish to believe such a thing. But just listen To Galatians 4:4-"When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, that he might buy back those who were under the law." Look carefully and study the words "fullness of the time"-exactly on schedule, precisely as it could have been and at no better time would it occur. When all of the things seemed to fit perfectly together, a woman got pregnant, a baby began to be formed. You wrap this gift in history.

You understand then, you must have a language that people can use to share his message, and they didn't have one since Babel. The world was filled with multiple languages. And so in history there came along a man named Alexander the Great, who created a language that became common, koine Greek. So that would be a precise language, that would put together thoughts and ideas which would be confusing, now clearly understood in printed form for the world to read. They had a language.

Well if you've got a language and if you've got a message to convey, you need roads to travel on to get the message out. And history tells us Rome built the roads. They had paved roads for the first time in all of time, thanks to Rome. That's the way God works, even on highways. Paved roads that tie east with west, that's part of the fullness of the time.

But what about the politics of those days? Well, you had a very unusual situation. You had a census required out of the blue. That required a man who found his roots down in Bethlehem to go literally, physically, to sign that census back to his roots. And it so happened this man had been engaged to this woman, and they made that little trek down to Bethlehem right about the time of her term. That's how you wrap an indescribable gift. You wrap Him in undeniable history.

Some people have the idea that Jesus was a stop-gap solution, a last-minute Band-Aid stuck on a wounded world; God had tried everything else, so he decided to try his son. That’s not true. The Bible says Jesus came in the fullness of time and everything was as fully prepared for him as possible. All the pieces of history fell together. God's preparation was staggering. You wrap an indescribable gift in history and you bring him at just the right time.

The baby Jesus comes wrapped in mystery

But you can't leave out the mystery. If you took away the mystery there's nothing indescribable about him. You have a prophetic word from Isaiah and from Micah and from Zephaniah and from Zechariah and from Malachi and from John the Baptist and a host of others, saying, "Messiah's coming; be ready. God's gift is about to be delivered. History is unfolding." The Roman world comes into power and was stepping all over Israel. And Israel wonders and pleads that the Messiah will come in bright, shining armor on a white horse overthrowing Rome. Yet that wasn’t God’s plan. This baby comes in mystery. What's the mystery about that baby? We can think of a couple of things right away. I think first of God's becoming visible in human form. We're used to those words, but it had never been before and it will never be again. What's God to do? He has his son in spirit form and yet he is to pay the price for the sins of the world. How does that presence of deity come to this earth and not be contaminated, yet be fully man? That's the mystery of it all. The Father God, the Son, the Spirit, co-eternal, co-existent, co-equal, come to this indescribable decision. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us," writes John. God became man. Let me put on the hat of a theologian for a moment. Undiminished deity took upon himself perfect humanity and, linking the two natures together in one personality housed in one unique body, the God-man was delivered. No less deity. No less humanity in one person, in one body. That is a mystery.

Did anyone ever say it any better than the hymn writer Charles Wesley? "Christ, by highest heavens adored; Christ the everlasting Lord! Late in time behold him come, offspring of the virgin's womb. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail the incarnate Deity, pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel." Strangely wrapped-in history, in prophecy, and in mystery. Well, then, something this awesome, something this stupendous had to have some kind of heavenly ad campaign, right? No, this baby was silently delivered. The nursery was a common stable. The cradle was a feeding trough. The first cries were heard only by a mother who was cleaning him up, a supportive man who stood in the entrance watching it all happen, and a few little animals.

When God finally did decide to make it known, he slipped out into the countryside and he chose a few Bedouin types. You’ve already heard of the wonder of this in another message. Never once are those folks even named—a bunch of no-account shepherds—because you see it was to no-account people that Jesus came; to sinners, just people who deserve hell and, were it not for his grace, would spend eternity there.

This is how God has put his gift together. He's not a grown man; he's a little baby. He's not a knight in shining armor; he's a little baby. He's tucked away in a feeding trough, in a manger, just over the hill. Just a baby. And he's lying in a manger wrapped in cloth—and mystery and history and prophecy.

Conclusion

That's why the Christmas story is to be repeated in God's words time after time after time. Because that's the only way men and women will believe the prophecy and history and mystery that surrounds that baby. We have people today still waiting for the baby to come? We have folks who think the messiah is on this earth and will soon reveal himself? Friend, stop looking for another messiah. Stop expecting another gift, another answer, another provision from God for the needs of your life. You have him. The world’s problem is that they’ve just rejected him. He's here.

In the birth of Jesus, God has delivered an indescribable gift to us. Unwrap that gift for yourself today.