"Chinese Food and Gifts We Give" - Sermon for Christmas Eve 2017

Sermon:

Text: Luke 2:1-20

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who is our gift.

  Every Tuesday morning I head over to Vermillion and get together with some other pastors in the area for text study, we read through the Sunday texts and talk about them, sometimes we get great things out of it, other times we get done and all go, well, still no ideas, after that we go out to eat together. It’s great camaraderie. This week we decided that since it’s Christmas week it would be appropriate to go out for Chinese food. I got my fortune cookie at the end and found this fortune in it. “The first great gift we can bestow on others is a good example.” Now, I don’t believe in things like fortunes or fate all that much, but I do like the occasional coincidence. It’s rather cliché and cheesy in a way, and maybe even said over and over, but the real greatest gift is Jesus.

  Gifts are great, as my wife Sarah will tell you, I both really like getting and giving gifts. Part of it is that I really like getting new things, growing up in a family where my parents were rather frugal meant we didn’t just buy the newest toy off the shelf whenever we went to the store, I usually only got new toys at Christmas and my birthday, which is January 11th, my office door is open Tuesday through Fridays just in case you didn’t know. So, when I got a present it was exciting. I also love giving gifts, partially because I like to buy things for people, and I especially love watching them open the gift and see the excitement in their eyes.

  Gifts are also great because gifts are free, you just get them. You didn’t have to do anything, you often don’t deserve the gift, the other person is getting it for you because they love you.

  It’s looking at all these things that I love talking about Jesus as a gift for us. Jesus is a gift that’s free, Jesus is a gift we don’t deserve but we get, we receive Jesus as a gift, and also, Jesus is a gift that we give to others.

 Jesus is a gift that’s free. I love the interchange between the shepherds and the Angel, in what starts as fear and terror turns to joy and wonderment. I am bring you good news of great joy! To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

 Have you seen a child learn that Santa came and there are even more presents under the table? The near uncontrolled rush of energy as they propel themselves as fast as possible to see what gifts are now there. Or Sunday mornings when service is done and they know that that means cookies are in the fellowship hall, you have to be careful at times so you aren’t trampled by the stampede. Maybe even better see a group of dogs who hear their food bowls being filled from the other room.

 That’s the excitement I see from the shepherds. Too often the text is read by stuffy pastor’s like myself to go, ““Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” Even though I read it like that, I don’t see for a second as what happened. Those shepherds were like kids running for presents or dogs barreling along towards food. WE HAVE TO GO NOW!!! I imagine it was the fastest those sheep ever were herded into town. We talked at text study this week a little bit about what their reaction to seeing Jesus in the manger would have been like. Was it nonchalant? Oh, a baby, yep the angel was right. Or. Golly Gee Willikers!! THE ANGEL WAS RIGHT! Why? Because Jesus was given to them! The best gift of all! Why? Why is Jesus the best gift? Because it means the Messiah is here. Or to use the greek version of that Hebrew word Messiah, the Christ is here.

 We get so used to saying Messiah or saying Christ that don’t know what it means that it’s a free gift for us. In fact, some people think that Christ is a last name for Jesus. The Messiah, the Christ, is the one to set the people free. Not just sort of free, but all the way free. Even more free than when Moses calls out, Set My People Free. It’s more than free from occupation or oppression. It’s free from everything. EV-er-y thing. It means that Jesus is with you in the midst of all. Everything you experience in life, none of that can separate you from the love of God found in Jesus Christ our Lord. Sin, Death, anger, jealousy, racism, sexism, fear, anxiety, depression, all the stuff that overwhelms, jobs, money, school, family. Christ in the midst of life means that those things cannot overcome us.

 Christ as a gift means that God has claimed us as children through nothing we’ve done, which means nothing you’ve done can keep God from loving you.

 That’s a rather good thing to be excited about.

 There’s one more part to gifts I haven’t gotten back to yet. Gifts are for getting, but even more so, gifts are for giving. The best part of Christ as a gift for us means that we get to give Christ to others. We’ll it’s a little bit different, Christ has already been given to those others without us having to do anything, what we get the joy of doing is showing and telling others that Christ is a gift that’s already arrived for them. They don’t have to fill out paperwork, we don’t have to fill out paper work to get Jesus, Jesus is already under the tree, and Jesus put the tree up himself.

 But, giving and sharing Jesus, our gift, means a couple things for us. It means that Jesus wants us to be like him, which means that Jesus wants us to care for all those people he came to save. The poor, the needy, the hungry, the overwhelmed, all those people for whom Jesus came to save just as much as Jesus came to save us. Getting Jesus as a gift isn’t just that we get Jesus to ourselves, getting Jesus as a gift means we have to realize that everyone else got Jesus too. Because as hard as it is to hear, Jesus didn’t come just for you, Jesus came for all of us. Jesus came to free us from all those things that keep us from sharing Jesus with the world. And therefore Jesus came to make sure we don’t use those same things against each other. If Jesus came to free you from fear, he certainly doesn’t want you to make others fearful. If Jesus came to free you from idolatry, from things like money, and power, and abuse, racism, sexism, to free us from all the things that hold us down, well, then Jesus certainly doesn’t want us to use those same things against others.

 Jesus’ is a free gift, but it’s a rather expensive free gift, because it means giving up all the things that keep us from receiving and giving Jesus in this world. Jesus as a free gift means we stop looking for gifts for ourselves, and seek to be gifts for others.

 As you go from here, out into the world where so many people are hurting, so many fear for their future, may you be the gift they need. May you be Christ for them, caring for them in their need, looking for the wellbeing and care of other before yourself. May you through being a gift for others show them the gift of Christ in their lives. Amen and merry Christmas.