The Perfect Christmas Present

For those of you who are doing some last minute Christmas shopping: I have the following tips.

What makes a perfect Christmas present?

Planned. Something grabbed from the gas station counter on the way over? Generally, not great.

Personal. It is for them. It reflects what they need.

Permanent. Something that lasts. The proverbial “gift that keeps on giving”.

If you can get 2 out of 3, that’s a great gift. If you can get all 3… that’s amazing.

In 1995 I gave the perfect Christmas present to Jono.

Months earlier I had purchased a large box full of popsicle sticks. Thousands of popsicle sticks in one box. I was into making these exploding ninja stars with them and figured it would be awesome for all sorts of activities. They sat in that box for months.

There was another thing I had that Jono was always jealous of. I had a CD Walkman and a CD collection. Top notch stuff: Boys2Men, Carmen, Michael W. Smith. Jono didn’t have a CD player, but his stereo did have a tape player.

So, over the course of several weeks, I secretly made (bootleg) copies of all my CDs onto tapes. I had the technology. Then I dumped out all the popsicle sticks from the box, stacked the tapes inside, and covered them with popsicle sticks.

When Jono opened his Christmas gift, all excited, you never saw an 11 year-old look quite so disappointed. Oh… my big brother got me…? Popsicle sticks. The same ones he had thought I was dumb for buying in the first place.

“Look inside!” my Mom said.

“I know what it is...”

“Look inside!”

He looks inside. What does he see? More popsicle sticks. Bwah ha ha!

“Look underneath the popsicle sticks!”

And he finds the tapes.

The perfect Christmas Gift.

It was planned, it took me weeks recording and labeling each tape. You had to do that in real time one album at a time.

It was personal. This was hand-crafted for him.

And it was permanent. He still has those tapes and plays them every day!

(Okay, 2 out of 3 isn’t bad). Full confession, I think he wasn’t much more excited about the tapes than he was about the Popsicle sticks. Wah wah.

Planned, personal… and not so permanent. Almost perfect.

That’s why this year, I’ll be getting Jono “nothing”. It’s planned (I’ve been planning on getting him nothing for quite some time). It’s personal (It’s exactly what he asked for and exactly what he deserves!). And permanent: he will have that nothing I gave him forever.

Where was I going?

Ah yes, Christmas. We all know Christmas is not about presents! Christmas is about Jesus!

So what do we learn about Jesus during this Christmas season? If you were to build a theology of Jesus just from our Christmas music, what would you get?

Creepy Jesus Baby

There are a few songs that build this picture of Jesus.

Silent night, holy night

All is calm, all is bright

Round yon Virgin, Mother, Mother and Child

Holy infant so tender and mild

Sleep in heavenly peace

Why is Jesus so quiet? Because he is so holy and perfect. He isn’t baby-like at all, he is Jesus-baby.

In a song I heard recently, right in the middle of an otherwise great song, there is this “Christmas” language

You draw the hearts of shepherds You draw the hearts of kings Even as a baby, You were changing everything You called me to Your Kingdom Before Your lips could speak And even as a baby, You were reaching out for me

Now, I fully realize I am being too critical and too literal here. But… this is a bit creepy to me.

Creepy Jesus Baby

Picture baby Jesus reaching out for you, right now. Now give him divine infinite knowledge, he can’t speak, but you can see the wisdom of ages in his eyes. And he is reaching out for you...

That isn’t incarnation. That’s more like a creepy puppet baby played by God.

Jesus didn’t come as a creepy God-baby, a human puppet controlled by a God-spirit. That is a heresy: either Docetism (Jesus just appeared to be human) or Apollinarianism (Jesus did not have a human mind). He enters fully into the human experience, becoming everything that a human baby is.

Jesus is fully God… but he is fully man. He enters into the full human experience, from conception to birth to adolescence to adulthood to death.

All of that helplessness and all of that messiness. All of the noise and all of the chaos. He is born in humility, born into family. My favorite picture, I have shared this before, is that “stables” at the time were usually just the family room of the house, the animals brought in for warmth.

Why? Why did Jesus come the way he did? At the time he did?

He could have come like an angel from on high. “Fear not, I am Jesus...” and start teaching and leading. He could still be human, still die on a cross, still be risen from the dead, all the things.

Why a baby?

The great philosopher, Ricky Bobby of “Taladega Nights” fame touches on an important truth. He prays:

I like the baby version the best, do you hear me?!

Amidst all the angels and miracles, all the glory… there is the most human of moments. Humble and messy, total incarnation of Almighty God-with-us as a 100% tiny human little baby. How human was he? His neighbors didn’t know. His brothers didn’t know, didn’t believe at first! He was to all appearances indistinguishable from the other human babies.

Jesus comes in the smallest way. In the humblest way. In the most approachable way.

Where every appearance of an angel is met with “fear not”… the appearance of the Son of God is small and subtle. A divine sneak attack.

At Just the Right Time, In Just the Right Way

We don’t get to design our Jesus. To customize him, to accessorize him.

… but here’s a funny thought. He did.

God got to decide exactly how and when Jesus would arrive.

Exactly where. He chose the the stage, the method, the announcement timing and place. He told the Christmas story.

He had an eternity to plan it out. Christian theology teaches us that God-the-Son preexisted from eternity. I picture conversations within the Trinity planning every moment. What will the angel Gabriel say? What will the angels sing? Who will be the blessed mother?

Galatians 4:4–7 ESV

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 receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Galatians 4:4 ESV

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,

The fullness of time. The perfect time. In the perfect way.

The Perfect Christmas Present

This is a theme in Scripture: that Jesus came at just the right time, in just the right way.

The ultimate Christmas present.

Planned from time before time. At just the right time.

Personal. He came to rescue you, to redeem you, so that you might receive adoption as a child of God.

Permanent. Jesus took on human form, took on our humanity… and never set it down. Jesus is still, now, 100% human, 100% divine. And all of humanity, by faith, is saved permanently, forever in him.

We understand the perfect gift of Christmas backwards.

Luke 2:11 ESV

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

So what? Receive now the gift Jesus has purchased for you: his own life.

Hear this season, the gifts of grace and forgiveness he longs to pour out upon you. Not as a onetime moment, but as a whole new life and a whole new way of life.

Receive, this season, the eternal love of God, who endured death so that you might live.

Receive, this season, God with us, Jesus joining us in our humanity that we might be reunited with God, in Christ, forever. Amen.