His Name Shall Be Called (Christmas)

Overview

Of all the customs surrounding Christmas, it occurs to me the most singular, the most distinctive, is the custom of giving one another gifts. You realize how unique that is. There are other special occasions, birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, Father’s Days, Mother’s Days, and so on, in which somebody is given gifts. You bring your gifts to somebody, but the real question is …

How many holidays do we have in which all of us give gifts to all of us? The answer is only one, and it’s right that we do it at Christmas because it highlights, it makes real, the central event, in some ways, the central truth of Christmas.

Jesus Christ came at Christmas, but he didn’t just come. He was given. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given …” Jesus didn’t just come. He was a gift. That’s the central event of Christmas, and all the gift giving, in a sense, makes that real. Jesus was given. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son …” Jesus did not just come. He was a gift.

There’s one place in which Paul is so overwhelmed by the thought of it that he breaks into praise, and he says, “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift,” an unspeakable gift, an inexpressible gift. It’s beyond description. It’s beyond comprehension. Whenever Paul thinks about it, even for a while, his imagination and his heart explode. What I’d like to do this morning is do nothing more, this last Sunday before Christmas, than lead you in a meditation on the idea of Jesus as a gift. If Jesus is a gift from God to us, what does that tell us about Christianity? What does that tell us about reality? What does that tell us about God? And what does that tell us about us?

The giftness of Jesus is what I want to think about with you today. The giftness. No other aspect. Just that. Let’s just divide our thinking along these two lines: What does the fact that Jesus is a gift tell us about Jesus and about the Father who sent him? What does it tell us about the triune God? And on the other hand, what does the fact that Jesus is a gift tell us about ourselves? Let’s start over here. First of all, what does the fact that Jesus is a gift tell us about God? The first thing it tells us is, like any great gift …