Christmas 2023

Even though at times it can be difficult to think of the right thing, gift giving is one of the beautiful customs of Christmas. It marks our appreciation and gratitude for the people in our lives. It does not need to be grand or expensive; it can be small and simple. At times it’s the outcome of a great deal of thought and consideration.  I am sure all of us, at some time, have given a gift and held our breath while we waited for the other person’s response.  Or we may have received a gift and not just been touched by it, but left without words because we know what it must have cost the person giving it, and not just financially? I think one of the most wonderful gifts I ever received was a simple spoon at the time of my Ordination. The homeless man who had given it to me had travelled all day to present it to me. Those kinds of gifts stay with us for our whole life.  The gifts that mean most to us are the ones that come completely unexpected.

Or, on the other hand, the gifts that mean most are to us can be the ones that we have waited to appear for so long.  Have we ever longed to receive something, wondering whether it would ever come, and then discovered it was ours?  Do we recall the sense of unbelief and yet the sense of joy?  Then the reception of a gift becomes transformative for us. Many times, these kinds of gifts do not come to us wrapped in paper. They come as a word of forgiveness, a smile of acknowledgement, a small gesture of kindness, a breakthrough in a difficult relationship, a new opportunity in our life, a change in challenging circumstances. And these are the most important gifts that we can give to one another.  If each of us could think of how to give one of these kinds of gifts this year, how different our world might become. The pressures that we currently face with the cost of living, with our global insecurity created by conflict and climate, are no barriers to this gift giving.  They do not cost money even if they cost us our ego.

At Christmas, God gives us a gift that is both long awaited and unexpected.  The human heart longs eternally for the gift of knowing that there is always a new beginning possible, that there is an open horizon, that there is always a future for us – even in the face of death.  We hope that there is something more than what makes us less than what we could be.

In the midst of this longing deep in our hearts. God gives us a simple Word.  Not much really in a word.  What do you do with a word?  But it is all God has.  Out of his poverty God has given us everything God has.  God has nothing left over, in a sense, after this gift.  The word that God gives us is the only thing God knows, the only thing that God has. The gift God gives us is God’s own life and it is contained in a single word, “Jesus”.  For those who can accept this gift, who can receive this unexpected gift, it is a Word which means “I am with you”; “You are accepted”; you always have dignity”; you always have a future”; you always have a new beginning.”  The birth of Jesus is the birth of a new way of looking on life for us.  That is the gift God gives each of us in our life if we can receive it.  

Let us receive this gift with open and vulnerable hands and hearts.  Let us long for it and recognise it in the most unexpected places.  It comes to us in the cry of a baby born in a stable:  there is nothing threatening here but gentle invitation and welcome.  

That is the way of the most precious gifts to us.