There are many things I love about the Christmas season. I love the bright and cheerful decorations, the rich and comforting food, and the endless stream of predictable yet heart-warming Hallmark Christmas movies. I love listening to nostalgic Christmas songs, reading advent devotions, making gingerbread houses, and having time to celebrate with friends and family. However, one thing I don’t love about Christmas is giving gifts. Shopping for gifts is stressful. There are so many questions running through my mind as I try to decide the gifts to give the people in my life. What do they want? What do they need? What do they already have? Is this gift too generic? Does it cost the appropriate amount? Shopping for gifts is no fun for me. Then when I have chosen a gift, presenting the gift to the person is unnerving. I don’t want them to feel obligated to respond in a certain way. I’m curious to see if they like the gift, but I know I can’t trust their overt reaction because they are probably just trying to be nice to me and not hurt my feelings. Thus, there’s this deep sense of dissatisfaction because I’ll never really know if they like the gift. Let’s just say I am grateful for my family’s tradition of telling each other exactly what we want for Christmas which eliminates a lot of this stress.
In 2 Corinthians 9, Paul is exhorting the people in the Corinthian church to live and give generously. He even says, “God loves a cheerful giver.” (Okay, so maybe I’ll work on my gift-giving attitude this Christmas.) Paul ends the chapter with a reminder of the gift that God, the best gift-giver, has given to all his children, a gift that is beyond words, the gift of God’s “surpassing grace.” This undeserved grace is the great blessing of our salvation in Christ, who came to this earth to live and die among us so that we might all experience the ultimate gift of free and abundant communion with our Creator. This is truly the greatest gift of the Christmas season and always.
Cherith Tucker