Sermon-The Gift is Given

"The Gift is Given--Then What?"

Dr. James L. Mayfield
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

December 24, 1999

Text: Titus 2:11-14

In Christmas we celebrate the unbelievable love, the fantastic generosity of God. Christmas is about the marvel and mystery of God loving us so much that God chose to become one of us in order to show us the way, the truth and the life. Into the midst of the world's problems and pain God came in the form of his only son so that we might live as God created us to live. It is an amazing gift God has given the world and us.

When we are being our best selves, we who have been created in the image of God follow God's example of love and generosity. This is basic and most valid reason we invest time, energy and money giving gifts to family and friends, giving special gifts to strangers in need, and making extra gifts of money to enable needed services and ministries to be done.

As we mature, our greatest pleasure in Christmas, and in most of life, is giving gifts. I do not know of any joy more satisfying than giving that "just right" gift to someone and knowing that it was just the right gift. The greater joys of Christmas and life are the joys of giving.

Of course there is nothing we humans cannot distort and bend out of shape, and this includes Christmas and gift giving. When love is removed from Christmas and gift giving is merely the fulfilling of some sort of obligation, there is little joy or satisfaction in our giving gifts. Finding the gift becomes a dreaded chore, and giving it becomes an empty act.

But when our giving of gifts is rooted in the love that was given expression in the first Christmas, then, our gift giving brings us great joy. Have you noticed the face of a child giving that special gift the child has made or selected for someone the child dearly loves? It is an expression of pure delight. Giving gifts of love is one of the major human experiences of joy.

On the other hand, one of the most depressing experiences we can have this time of year is to find ourselves in a situation in which we are unable to give what we want to give. When we have any degree of maturity the disappointment that we cannot give what we want to give is much more painful than not getting the gift we had hoped someone would give us.

Gift giving gets a lot of attention this time of year, and this is understandable. But tonight, I want to focus on more than giving gifts. I want us also to focus on receiving gifts because I am convinced that Christmas is not just about giving gifts; it is also about receiving gifts.

When the little child gives us that something the child has made as a Christmas gift, it is not the something the child has made that brings tears of joy and gratitude to our eyes. It is the love behind the gift. It is the joyful love in the act of the child giving us a gift that touches us so deeply. It is the love, much more than the gift, that matters.

Part of the distortion of some of our Christmas gift giving is directly related to the way we have distorted our receiving of gifts. When we focus on the gift, we tend to miss the point because the issue is trivialized to whether or not the gift pleases us or is something we want or can use. When we focus on the gift we have been given, we tend to lose sight of the love, the friendship, the affection being expressed in the giving of that gift. When our focus is only on the gift, our joy is limited to whether or not the gift is what we really wanted.

Quite frankly, for most of us who come to this church there are very few things we really want. In fact one of the great challenges for many of us is responding to the question: "What do you want for Christmas?" So, little wonder the gifts we receive, in and of themselves, are seldom a source of joy.

It is only when in receiving the gifts we are able to see the love, the affection that is inside the gift, that our receiving the gift can become an experience of joy. It is our receiving love, not merely receiving a gift, that produces joy.

The big difference between Christmas being merely a holiday and Christmas being a joy filled holy day is whether or not we are aware of the love God expressed in the birth of Jesus. When we sing "Joy To The World" this time of year, what enables us sing with joy is our awareness that God so loved the world that God sent his only son -- not to bring us condemnation but to bring us salvation, not to give us a bad time but to give us good news about healing and hope. It is when we are aware of the love God expressed in the gift of Christ, that Christmas becomes more than another holiday honoring the birth of another historical figure.

When we are aware of the love in God's Christmas gift, our celebration of Jesus' birth becomes truly a celebration. The poet who wrote these words we sing was right on target:

"Love came down at Christmas."

And it is the love of God, the amazing grace of God incarnate in the baby born to Mary and Joseph that makes us want to ring bells, sing songs, have a feast, throw a party, give a gift. Christmas becomes truly Christmas when we truly receive what Christmas offers.

But receiving the gift involves more than merely accepting the gift. Truly receiving the gift involves using the gift.

When my younger sister was preschool age, I remember a friend of our family giving each of us very special Christmas gifts. I was given my first wrist watch. Sarah was given a large, beautiful expensive doll. Both were gifts beyond what our parents could afford. The gifts were wonderful; and the woman who give them was a delightful, colorful character who had taken more than a liking to our family.

Not long ago I was remembering this colorful lady and I talked with my sister, Sarah, about those special Christmas gifts. The doll had not made much impression on her; she only vaguely remembered it. Looking back, I think one of the reasons why is because the doll was so nice, so special Mother kept reminding Sarah to be careful not to damage the doll and to take good care of it; after all it was a very expensive gift. And so the doll was not played with very much; after all, it needed special care. The doll had been given to my sister, but in a very real sense the doll was never really hers. She did not play with the doll very much; she never really used the gift, and so, in a sense, she never fully received the gift she had been given.

In Christ we have been given a very special gift, a gift beyond our ability ever to comprehend. The gift of God's love in Jesus is ours. It is ours whether we are aware of it or not. It is ours whether we believe it or not. It is our gift, but until we receive it, accept it, make it a part of our living, it is not fully ours.

Too often we are like a child who has been given a magnificent bicycle but who never learned to ride it. And so the bicycle stays in the garage, admired by friends, occasionally brought out in the sun light. Every once in a while someone will get on it and show us how to ride. But for us the gift remains mostly unused.

The passage of the scripture I chose for tonight is not part of the story about the birth of Jesus. It is from a letter of Paul, and its focus is on the use we make of God's Christmas gift. God sent his only son into the world not merely to tell us that God loves us but to show us how to live.

God loves us so much God wants us to live as we were intended to live. God wants to bring out the best God sees in each of us.

This is what Paul was writing about -- accepting the gift, fully receiving the gift, not merely admiring it in some beautiful garage we call a sanctuary but taking that gift into our lives and out into the world where we live. We are not merely to look on the gift and ooh and ahh about how marvelous the gift is, and then keep it locked away safe from the world most of the time. We are to take the gift and put it to use in our daily living. The gift is truly received only when the gift is put to use.

God, we know Christmas is not only about the amazing, fantastic gift of love you have given; it is also about how we receive your gift. Help us grow in our awareness of your Christmas gift. Enable us to allow your gift to shape the living of our lives. Amen.

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