Unwrapped presents

Romans 15:7-13

          Perhaps it's a predominantly Roman Catholic or American thing to let the secular nature of Christmas overshadow the true meaning of Christmas so if you can't understand the next sentence or two, try to imagine the scene.  A child runs from their bedroom on waking Christmas morning to find a mind numbing array of presents that has appeared miraculously beneath the Christmas tree.  Without much delay, the family gathers and the child or children make no haste in laying into the presents almost ignoring who they are for and wrapping paper, bows and ribbons fly through the air. I'm not making this up.  Inevitably, a child opens a present that is so foreign and so unwanted that it seems to fall out of their hands as if it was a toppling ice cream cone except there is no regret. The item is summarily tossed aside. Either it holds no interest, is not what they asked for or what they wanted.  Aside from all the other problems with this scene, I'd say the present was not appreciated. Even if it was simply a scarf, they didn't care. The caring might be recognized on an intensely cold day, when only then is the lowly scarf appreciated. Then and only then it might actually rise from recognition to appreciation to love. 

            As the Christmas season comes to a close for most I started to think about some of the unwanted, unexpected or even unrecognized gifts I might have received.  I am not quite the religious zealot I once was and so the holidays were filled with a calmness, peace, love, family and a modicum of worship. We escaped the insanity so many experience. We had the best of the best and there was no ribbon throwing, no morning madness.  But still, did I recognize the magnitude of the presents I have received? Did I discard a thought or two that would help me realize how sweet and loving my life truly is?  I like to think I am pretty attentive to life but I also think some things may have escaped me. I am quite certain things escaped the people who did not escape the insanity. That is, buying things for people that don't need them; for people we don't like and with money we don't have. That's a description of the insanity a good parish priest once preached on. That's yet another good definition of the insanity.

          How present ( pun intended ) am I to the fact that Jesus is God and became man for me? Not only did God purpose build me, he allowed himself to be fully human for me ( us ) in a truly vulnerable and innocent way.  Every moment of our life, He would live through. Yesterday I wrote about sexuality but that is far from the totality of our existence.  We love, we feel pain, we suffer, we trip, we fall, we get up again, we learn, we share and so Jesus did as well. Jesus came to us as a baby to grow and live like we did. How great a gift to us? Can we appreciate it? Do we toss such a fact blithely aside like an unappreciated gift? 

            Whatever else we may have unwrapped on Christmas, let us not to forget the greatest present we have been given and let us keep that present in our pockets and in our hearts all year long.

Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,

‘Therefore I will confess you among the Gentiles,

   and sing praises to your name’; 

and again he says,

‘Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people’; 

and again,

‘Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,

   and let all the peoples praise him’; 

and again Isaiah says,

‘The root of Jesse shall come,

   the one who rises to rule the Gentiles;

in him the Gentiles shall hope.’ 

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.