Text for the Week: God’s Gift

Scripture: Luke 2:1-20

 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴ Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵ He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.

⁸ Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹ to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them, ¹⁹ and Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.

Questions

1. Who is included in the “to you” that God gave the Messiah to?
2. What are the things that Mary was meditating on and how does her meditation serve as a model for us?

Background

Related Scriptures: Psalm 115; Isaiah 9:2-7; Philippians 4:19; Titus 2:11-14

Much of the story of Luke 2 is framed against the way Romans promoted Ceasar Augustus’ birth and reign. Augustus was seen as a gift from the gods and a divinely appointed king, Luke is telling us that Jesus is the true gift and divinely appointed king.

Do not be afraid is a typical greeting for an angel and is meant to show how the Divine presence can be misconstrued as dangerous when it should be seen as joyous.

In Mary’s song she referred to God as the savior in the angel’s proclamation he refers to Jesus as the savior, this is a deliberate connection between God and Jesus.

Signs were not inherently the promise so the Shepherds might not have inherently understood the baby was the Messiah, but simply the baby was a sign to show the angel spoke accurately.

Reflection

I think it was very clever of Luke to write the narrative of Jesus’ birth with an eye to how the Romans talked about Augustus. Luke is taking the common cultural narrative of his day and standing it on its head so people can understand how radically different Jesus is from the rulers and culture of their day. I think this is a lesson that we need to learn today, it is important to consider how Jesus’ birth works to undermine our cultural norms and point us down a different path. One of the ways in which Luke’s story can correct our current culture is in our understanding of Jesus as a gift. There’s a Randy Trvis song that has the lyric “He had the birthday, we got the gift.” This is a sound way to picture Jesus’ birth, a gift from God. Where this picture can teach us as a culture is in the fact that God’s giving nature looks very different from ours.

In our culture we teach people that we must be good to receive gifts at Christmas, I’ve even seen memes telling parents to wrap empty boxes like Christmas presents and throw them in the fire when children misbehave. A less extreme notion is that kids who are on the naughty list will get nothing but coal for Christmas, instead of the good things the nice children receive. The assumption in our thoughts of Christmas is that when we are good we get gifts and when we are not we don’t. But Elizabeth’s comment in Luke 1:43 emphasizes how different the Christian notion of gift giving is, “And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” Elizabeth is asking the question that we should all ask, what have I done that I am blessed with the gift of Jesus’ presence. The reality is that we have done nothing to merit the gift of Jesus, there is no naughty or nice list to determine who is blessed by Jesus’ presence and who is not, instead Jesus is a gift for the whole world. God does not give based in our merit but in God’s own generous character. God is simply generous, giving good things to humanity and especially to those who have the most need. Mary sings of this in Luke 1:46-56 where she notes how God comes to bring blessings and deliverance for those in need. It can be difficult to accept that God wants to give us good things, not because of how good we are but because God is generous. There is a temptation to say that we have to be good to receive God’s gift, but God wants us to recognize that we receive gifts simply because we are loved. It is when we recognize we are loved and so accept good things from that posture that we are in a position to show others God’s love. We first understand that God gives Jesus to us because God loves us, then we are able to say to others, I give to you because I received. I give because I am loved and because I want to show the same love to the world.

Christians are called to recognize God’s generosity and emulate it, this is what led us to celebrate St. Nicholas at Christmas time. Far from being someone who gave to those who were nice, St. Nicholas gained a reputation for giving to those who were in the greatest need. His generosity, like God’s, was there for all but was most visible among those who had the least. Nicholas took seriously the kinds of generosity and deliverance that Mary spoke about in her song and wanted to be a catalyst to bring those qualities into the world.

For us today Christmas should be a time of meditation on God’s gifts to us and how these gifts are a reflection of God’s generosity. Of course, most notably among the gifts that God has given is Jesus who is our savior. We should take time this Christmas season to consider how Jesus is a gift, not something that we deserve or have earned, or even a reward.  We take time this Christmas to reflect on God’s generosity with us and how we can accept the gifts that we have been given. And in this we discover how we can learn to be generous with others, because in that generosity we can show others God’s love for them.