The Gift of a Person

Well, all the Christmas celebrations are now done, unless you are among the people who celebrate Epiphany, or Three Kings Day. For most of us, the wrapping paper will be in the garbage. We’ll be thinking about when to take the tree down and put the Christmas lights away. The stores are busy, but for different reasons. Many of those “perfect” Christmas gifts we got for one another will be exchanged or returned. I once remember being in a “return” line for 30 minutes. What a horrible experience!
Others are trying to figure out where to put all the “stuff” they got. Children are playing with the box their “favorite toy” came in. Just think: all that fussing and anxiety over getting gifts, and for so many, it comes down to this. Think about it: can you remember what Christmas gifts you received a year ago? Can you remember who gave you what? Think about the gifts that eventually end up in the cellar, in the Goodwill bin or even on the curb with the rest of the trash. Gifts have their useful life and then, like all material things, they lose their value.
I was thinking of this a few weeks ago while preparing for a funeral. It was for an amazing woman who had a great impact on the life of her family, her friends, her job and her church. I wanted to say something to the family that would help them get through a tough Christmas season. One thing I thought about was gifts. She was a great gift giver. She was especially famous for giving Christmas gifts.
The thought came to me, though, that these gifts were not the important thing. She was. She was the real gift to them. The best gift they received from her was not the material things she gave them, but herself: who she was, what she meant to them – her very presence in their lives. When all the material things fade away, she will remain with them. Her love, her joy, her example was the gift that would last, the gift that would impact them every day of their lives.
Some justify the giving of gifts at Christmas based upon the gift of Jesus to the world. Yet here again, what Jesus gave us was nothing material at all. The gift of Christmas was Jesus himself. His very presence in this world was a gift beyond comprehension. God chose to live among us, as one of us. Jesus was Emmanuel, God with Us. His presence had a deep impact upon all those who encountered him. But it did not stop there. The gift of Jesus is truly that gift that keeps on giving – for over 2,000 years!
Jesus is still among us. Through Jesus, we now know that God is a personal God, a God who wants to have a relationship with us. He wants us to know that he is with us. We know and feel his presence most powerfully when we come together on Sunday morning to worship, yet he abides with us in our daily lives, no matter what. He is there in our joys and our sorrows. His presence gives us strength and faith, it gives us peace and joy. The greatest gift God gives us is himself, a person.
The next greatest gift we have in our lives is one another. So many times, as a church, we can get so busy doing things: meeting, preparing, cooking, planning, that we don’t have a chance to just be one another, appreciate one another and acknowledge the gift we are to one another. As we go about “processing” our Christmas gifts, let us take time to think of the real gifts to our lives, the people whose very presence in our lives has made a profound impact on us. Let us acknowledge these gifts and let people know what they mean to us. And let us pass this gift on to others, especially the next generation.