The Best Gift Ever
On the Christmas when I was eight years old, there was a particular kind of watch I wanted very badly, an underwater watch -- black face, luminous dial, rotating bezel. My older brother and I were raised by our maternal grandparents and our family custom was that all gifts were opened on Christmas Day —except that on Christmas Eve, we could open one gift of our choosing. I had studied the packages very carefully and I knew which one contained my watch. When the time came on Christmas Eve to select which gift we would open, I immediately took that one -- which I had carefully placed at the front of all the gifts. I knew it would be the best gift ever.
Much to my dismay, my grandmother gently took that gift away and handed me a different one. She had never done that before and this didn’t seem to me like a very good time to start, but she said, “I want you to open this one instead.” I was devastated. As I was slowly unwrapping it she said, “It’s some perfume I thought you might like to wear to Midnight Mass.” I was an eight year old tomboy. I didn’t want perfume; I wanted my watch! But of course, when I unwrapped the gift she had handed to me, it was my watch. I thought I knew which gift I wanted, but, in fact, I’d really wanted a different one.
Very often around this time, there are news stories asking people what they want for Christmas, and the “wants”range from personal things like a particular gift or a happy family, to more global concerns like peace on earth and joy to the world. And there’s nothing wrong with any of those things. But I wonder if perhaps there’s something deeper and more personal. Maybe we think we know the gift we want but, in fact, we might really want a different one.
When we get right down to it, I think what matters to us, what we need, what we really want, are things like knowing we matter, that our lives have some purpose, that our sins don’t need to haunt us all our lives, that we’re not alone in the tragedies we face, that those we love who have died are cared for, that there is a strength beyond our strength and a hope beyond our deepest and best hopes. And that, of course, is the real gift we’re offered on Christmas.
For Christianity claims that on this night, God not only acted in history, but entered history as a human being. Christianity is the only major world religion which makes that claim. For in Christ, we believe God came not in a voice, or in a burning bush. Not in tablets of stone or in a cloud or in a whirlwind. Not in a prophet, a priest, a judge or a king. Not in an angel. God came to us as one of us.
And God did so for no reason other than to show us the enormity of his love. God came as an infant as a sign of new beginnings and new possibilities. God came as a human being because despite the many ways he had tried to convey his love to us, nothing seemed to have worked, so he decided to come in person. God lived among us so he could experience our lives and, in so doing, be able to be present with us in all that we experience from our greatest joys to our deepest sorrows, from our human living to our human dying. God came as one of us to teach us that our sins are forgiven, and that new life can arise from the ashes of the old.
But we do need to be clear about one thing: God becoming one of us, God’s ability to be present with us, doesn’t mean our faith is magic and our life will be one of undiluted pleasure. There’s no denying that for many people, this Christmas is not a time of unmitigated joy.
There are people whose loved ones are serving our country in dangerous places around the world. There are people still grieving from recent terrorist attacks, here and abroad. There are people in the American South who have just lost everything from yesterday’s and today’s tornados. There are people out of work, people who have lost loved ones, people who have a family member or friend who is seriously ill, people whose relationships are falling apart.
God’s presence with us doesn’t mean that everything will be just as we want it to be. It means that God is present with us in all we experience, whether life is exactly as we want it to be or exactly as we do not want it to be.
The gift of the Incarnation, of God taking on human flesh, means that we are never -- in anything -- ever alone. It means that we are important enough to God that no sin, no tragedy -- not even death itself -- can separate us from God or keep God from coming to us. That is perhaps what we really need and want -- and on this night, that is the gift we get.
A number of years ago, one of my parishioners visited Israel. While there, she became friends with an interpreter named Sharon who told her about her experiences surrounding the Persian Gulf War. It was a strange war in the sense that, if you recall, the day it was to begin was pretty much announced. The war was posted to begin on January 16th. In the days leading up to that, the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv was total chaos with people trying to flee the country.
Sharon, her husband and their two children, ages 6 and 8, had decided to stay in Israel. On January 15th, the day before the war was to begin, no one was flying in -- only empty planes arrived. However, those same planes were departing jam-packed with fleeing evacuees. But on January 15th, the day before the war was to begin, one inbound flight had one person on it: Sharon’s mother, who was flying in from her home in London. When asked by others why in the world she had flown in to Israel, Sharon’s mother replied, “My children are in trouble. I’ve come to be with them.”
Her mother’s presence didn’t make the war go away, but at least Sharon and her family knew they were dearly loved —and they weren’t alone. In the same way, God coming among us in Christ doesn’t make everything that’s wrong in our lives go away, but at least we know we’re dearly loved and we’re not alone. God loved us enough to come among us and be with us.
Often when we speak of being close to God, the preposition we use is “up”: we talk about being lifted up into God’s presence, having our spirit lifted up. (See, Barbara Brown Taylor’s Home by Another Way, p. 22) But Christianity is not about us going up. It’s about God coming down.
That is perhaps the gift we really need and want -- and so, on this night, God gently offers it. By coming down to us, by becoming one of us, God tells us that we do matter, that our life does have a purpose, that our sins are forgiven, that we are not alone, that we are cared for here and hereafter, and that there is a strength beyond our own strength and a hope beyond anything we could hope.
On this night we are told that the Creator of all things decided that if his children are in trouble, he needs to be with them. So we’re not going up tonight, God is coming down here tonight, giving us the gift we really need, the gift we really want: a God who needs, wants and chooses to be with his children -- no matter what. And that is, truly, the best gift ever.
Mother Liza Spangler
Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans, MA
Christmas Eve Midnight Mass, 2015