We’ve just been in the season of Christmas, in fact some of us believe that the Christmas season will last a little longer – right up until Candlemas! However you celebrated, I very much hope that for all of us Christmas was a time of gifts – both given and received – and I don’t just mean physical gifts, many of us will have had the gift of an invitation to go out for coffee or lunch, we might have received a card posted through the door from an old friend or a kind word, or greetings of the season, given by a complete stranger – and of course as Christians we have the greatest gift of all with us every day in our relationship with Jesus.
However, Christmas can also be a little stressy – we wonder if we’ve chosen the right gift, did we spend enough money on it, will they appreciate it, or might it cause offence? If you read any of our advent reflection leaflets, you might have seen the one about Christmas adverts – how they entice many to focus on the materialism, sometimes even encouraging us to think that what we have lovingly chosen, or in turn had gifted to us, just isn’t enough and we need to spend more, buy bigger, or have the right to be unappreciative, if it’s not what was wanted or expected. Goodness what a world we live in where our lives, and our society, are impacted so subversively by others.
However, we know that the importance of gift giving and receiving is what happens in our hearts – how good does it make us feel when someone stops, smiles and wishes us a Happy Christmas? When that card from a long-forgotten friend drops through the door and we reminisce about the good times spent together? How our hearts skip a beat when we see the glee on the face of the person who has just opened the special gift that we spent time choosing and put money aside to buy. Regardless of size or cost, if we give and receive from full and generous hearts, we can feel the love behind the action, and that for me, is what makes all the stress of choosing and paying worthwhile. The story of Christmas is of the enormous gift given to us in the Christ-Child – the overflowing and unending love and grace of God. I would suggest that for all of us, the best gift we received this Christmas was Jesus, no need for jolly Christmas wrap, the love and grace of God comes unwrapped, opened up for all of us to receive – and I’m hoping that is a gift we were able to give as well – it really is something to share.
For those that don’t know Jesus, the commercialism of Christmas can be overwhelming, for some the number of presents and the amount of money spent becomes the measure of a ‘good Christmas’. For many, this Christmas felt like the first fully free Christmas since the restrictions of Covid, and my hope is that rather than over indulging in gift giving, people focussed more on all that they missed out on when we were locked down and unable to see each other – time spent together.
Whatever our longings and desires, the gifts of God are not just for us as individuals, not just for us personally. Along with the increasing individualism of our society has been a view of Christianity as being about personal salvation. Accepting the Lord Jesus as ‘my’ saviour who makes me right with God and saves me from the consequences of my own sinful self. But perhaps having been through the Pandemic, realising all we have missed out on has given us the gift of realising that the idea of me, myself, as an independent individual, unconnected with others or with the rest of creation is utter fallacy. We are interdependent beings, whose decisions have ramifications for everyone and everything. The gift we give to one another as we each play our part, is one beyond value – not necessarily recognised or appreciated in the moment, but in the overall scheme of things, of immense significance.
Today, in the gifts of the Magi, we see this deeper significance – gifts not for the child alone, but with a meaning far beyond the moment.
Glorious and glittering gold, not to use for paying the bill at the inn, which I rather hope was discounted anyway as they as they certainly didn’t get the best room, but as a sign of the royal line and supreme power of this baby king, unpromising as his current circumstances might suggest. Fragrant frankincense, not to freshen up the smelly stable, but as a sign of the divinity of this child, Son of God, one who is to be worshipped, the answer to all our prayers. Medicinal myrrh, not for childhood ailments, for the coughs and colds, but as a sign that God gives us balm for our souls, and will give everything to save us – a foretelling of the spices and ointments of the tomb, and the magi themselves, demonstrating the scope of the good news of this child, born a Jew, and yet a sign for the whole world. ‘Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.’
In all this is both the glory of God and the humility of Jesus – the uniqueness of the way of relating that we see in the Trinity – complete self-giving to the other and also open to all.
The Christ-Child teaches us that we can all be children of God, but only if we are willing to receive this as a gift of God, a gift both uniquely ours and yet offered to everyone and shared by everyone.
Mary sees this too – at Christmas, the gift that she might have thought was known to her and Joseph alone, is then shared with the shepherds and then at Epiphany it seems the whole world is to know. The gift is not for us as individuals, it does not belong to us, but is one we find most fully as we share it. This Epiphany – let the light of the Star reveal to us the wonder of the gift we’ve been given – the radiance of the love of God in the midst of our darkness, the hope of all the nations, the Saviour of all the world.
Amen
Service: Reverend Rebecca Yates – 7th January 2024
Referenced Scripture: Isaiah 60.1-6; Psalm 72 (1-9) 10-15; Ephesians 3.1-12; Matthew 2.1-12