Words from WW Blog

This past week one of the middle school students gave a teaching friend of mine a wrapped gift. My friend said thank you and commenced to tearing off the wrapping paper. She discovered that there was another wrapped gift underneath, and then another one underneath that one. It went on like that for several more unveilings, each new package a little smaller than the previous until the last teeny-tiny gift revealed a sweet surprise.

Christmas is like that, numerous layers of verbiage, traditions, illuminated homes decorated with lights, reindeer and inflatables, bells, music, and fruitcake. Christmas has become multi-layered, which isn’t necessarily bad, but the teeny-tiny gift at the center of the festivities sometimes becomes a byproduct, kind of like the Double AA batteries that get forgotten until it’s too late.

I love Christmas. People share their love with others through homemade fudge, family Christmas letters, and being Secret Santas. Charitable organizations plan to be the beneficiaries of that spirit of generosity and people being concerned for others. Christmas has so much to offer. And the reason for the layer after layer of wrappings is because of Jesus.

There are some folk who celebrate the Holidays and follow all of the traditions that are rooted in Jesus, but they don’t mention His name. They unwrap all the presents that encapsulate the Messiah, but don’t believe in the fulfillment of the last gift, God’s gift. There’s a callousness in many folk about the spiritual dimension of the season. They are more endeared to the peanut brittle than the newborn Baby.

God’s wrappings…outcast shepherds, foreign visitors with gifts, a weary first-time father, angelic hosts…are the crowd gathered around the reason for this season. They are the unlikely invited layers of humanity and the holy who have come to the place of the Incarnate.

I confess that I often forget that as I look at the reduced price for A&W Root Beer these next two weeks, think of the Prime Rib Roast our son, David, is bringing on Christmas Day, and worship the event called the afternoon nap. I am blessed by Jesus. May I be a blessing because of Jesus. A wrapping that signals the grace of God, if you please, around the Savior.

This entry was posted on December 18, 2022 at 2:59 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.