Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:4)
Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7)
Christmas is a very special time of year. It is a time full of tradition. It is a time filled with family. It is a time filled with laughs and smiles. The name of Christ is glorified when our celebration of his becoming human for us is marked with the deepest merriment. Christmas is a time of giving.
Christmas shopping can be crazy business. There are many people to buy for, lots of stuff to get. If you want a headache, try going near a mall on the weekend. Some people even get creative and make stuff for people... not me. (And they are thankful for it. Just ask Nicole or Michael Gilbert about my impeccable cookie decorating abilities.) Christmas is indeed a time for giving.
And a time for receiving. I believed in Santa Claus when I was little. He brought me a ton of stuff it seemed. My parents had already gotten me toys that were specifically from them, so the rest had to be from Santa, right?! Well, I remember the days leading up to Christmas being marked by great anticipation. I knew that I was going to be getting stuff, and if the pattern held true, lots of stuff!
You might expect me to bash Santa Claus as the Great Distractor, and materialism as the idolatry of stuff, but I am not. I'll save that for another, less cheerful blog entry, one that I hopefully won't get around to writing. Instead, I want to contend that Christians are best equipped to enjoy Christmas for several different reasons, the deepest of which goes to our very core, our very identity that we have been given.
I think there was something pure in our anticipation of Christmas as children, even when a large part of that anticipation was for Christmas morning when we would get toys. Kids don't even know to hide this delight, and I think it would be rather Scrooge-like to make them. As a kid, I had no money, and I had absolutely no way to effectively repay anyone for the gifts I was receiving. I am sure that the best gift I gave was a huge smile and a genuine joy in getting to play! I am sure my parents joy in Christmas morning was seeing the joy my brother and I had in receiving.
Joy is the best expression of thanksgiving, and thanksgiving was all I had to give. Christmas, indeed, was a giant exercise in receiving grace, though I didn't have all the theological apparatus in my brain to call it that. I know that we can be distracted by getting so much stuff that we neglect those who gave us the stuff, but as a kid, I wasn't even smart enough to make that distinction. Analyzing things is okay, and it is even very appropriate in many cases, but we should never let our analyzing suck the joy out of things. God calls us to love him with our mind, which definitely means using it, and he also commands our joy, so I know the two aren't mutually exclusive. There was such joy in receiving as a kid. (And I still anticipate Christmas for this reason, but sometimes I feel selfish for saying so. This blog entry is calculated to rid some of us over-thinkers from unnecessary guilt.)
Christmas is time for receiving, which is something we practice as children, and it is a great grace. But it is also a time for giving. God loves a cheerful giver. My wife is such a cheerful giver, and she gives such thoughtful gifts. I am blessed to be married to her.
There are many pitfalls and ways to sin, soiling the beauty of God's creative purposes. Within the context of Christmas, we can become selfish, we can covet, we can be stingy, we can fail to set our hearts on Christ's coming as the true meaning of the holiday... we can do a million different things.
The one I want to focus on is the way we can subtly turn Christmas giving into a mere checklist, a tug of war, a sort of graceless exercise in giving and receiving, a sort of Scrooge-like accounting system. Once we are actually old enough to make money, we realize that we ought to be giving back as well. We see that we have received from someone, and we try to give them something back. Giving is a hugely beautiful thing when it is done out of love and not out of obligation. Giving out of obligation is not cheerful giving.
I fear that many people try to make Christmas a zero-sum game. We don't want to be in debt to anyone. If someone gives us something, or if we think someone is going to give us something, there is an impulse within us to try to match that gift back if we can. We want to be even. But I think that if our motivation is to keep everything even, we have destroyed the idea of a gift. If what we have been given is really a gift, it comes with no strings attached, and the only appropriate response is thanksgiving and joy. Our response does not need to be that we go out and find something of equal value to give back. If the gift we have given to someone is really a gift, it goes with no strings attached. We are not expecting repayment. Do you give expecting in return? A particularly nasty way to twist giving is for a wealthier person to give to someone more than they can repay materially, and then the wealthier person will hold the other in their debt.
Christian identity is the fuel for Christmas. First, the most obvious way this is true is that we are celebrating Christ at Christmas. If we do not have faith in Christ, it is impossible to really celebrate the holiday in truth. If we do not have faith, it is impossible to have joy at Christ's coming.
Second, Christian identity radically fuels our receiving. As Christians, we have become something new, not because of our works or how smart we are or how effectively we repent or any such nonsense. We have become something new because we have been made something new; we have received a new identity from outside ourselves as the Gospel is proclaimed to us. We are now the forgiven, the freed, the sons and daughters of the Most High God. The debt we owed, that we were unable to pay, was payed in full by Christ our Mediator at the cross.
The nature of Christian grace is this: I have done absolutely zero to merit salvation. I did not earn it. I do not add to it. My salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. The moment I try to add to it, to improve my salvation, I distort it. At the core of our identity as Christians is grace. We see ourselves paralyzed, unable to move to improve our condition, picked up by our Savior, carried, given life. We are passive, and he is active in this. At the core of our identity as Christians is a radical dependence upon another. Before we are ever givers, we are receivers. We are always dependent on God, so we remain receivers. Those who give and receive best are those who are on their knees in the morning confessing their absolute dependence on Jesus.
Third, Christian identity radically fuels our giving. As we realize the fleeting nature of this world, stuff does not have a hold on us. We no longer feel the need to get rich and cling to stuff as our identity when we are heirs of a Kingdom. Therefore, we can loosen our grip on our stuff enough to give it away... joyfully. Jesus was not stingy with his own blood, which he shed as a gift to us, so how can I be stingy with anything. I cannot. Nothing I own is really mine anyway. It is all on loan to me for a time, and I am merely a steward. Everything I have is for the glory of God, and I can often bring him most glory by being very giving with it.
Let me conclude and put all this together. As Christians, we are radically freed to receive because at our core we are people who know we receive every breath as a gift. We know we can never repay God, so we are freed from the need to repay others. But we do! Not out of obligation. As Christians, we are radically freed to give, expecting nothing in return, because we have been shown such great love. When we behold our Savior, we transformed into his likeness, and he is such a good giver. We give like Christ gave, and we receive like little children - we must become like them to enter the Kingdom of God, right? Grace is the great ocean within which the Church swims - the only reason it exists - and in that ocean these things flow freely in both directions. The world knows only echoes and shadows of this great grace, but as Christians, it should be the center of who we are.
In our giving and receiving, may we have great freedom and great joy. In that way, may we glorify our Savior who gave us so much when he freely came to take on the sins of the world. Glory to God in the highest!!!
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