What do you want for Christmas? 

You’ve been asked that question in the last few days, I know. There are still people in your life who plan to bless you this week with a gift. They aren’t looking for an excuse – the economy; inflation; porch-pirates – to take you off their list. Maybe you’ve used my line: “Just surprise me.”

My life has way too much predictability; how about you? Consistency may be great for airline schedules and dodging traffic patterns, but – in life – a few pleasant surprises can hit the spot.

Christmas has alot of paint-by-numbers certainty attached to it. It’s like watching It’s a Wonderful Life, or Home Alone when my grandkiddos were younger. For them, it was spellbinding; for me, I could mimic Jimmy Stewart’s or Macauley Culkin’s parts, verbatim. No mystery there.

Church is still the highlight of the season. Last Sunday, Cheri and I were in our “family pew” at Calvary Church in Santa Ana. They did a great job with the greatest story, but it was, for me, the umpteenth time to hear the “news.” I knew all the players; I knew the lines; I knew the plot twists and the backstory. No surprises: they haven’t added anything to the Christmas Story since last year… or, since it happened over two millennia ago.

I got a little spooked at myself: have I lost the wonder of it all? Would a little holiday amnesia go a long way toward restoring the grandeur of the Incarnation? Has it become – for me, a longtime follower of Jesus – “old hat?”

We’ve heard the Bethlehem story from Matthew and Luke’s perspective. Have you read it recently, as it would have been covered in the Wall Street Journal?

Had the WSJ been publishing back then, they would have contracted with the Apostle Paul to cover the story (timing doesn’t fit, but stick with me here!). Paul’s unique angle was just the thing for the rich young rulers who surround me daily and are living-and-dying with the daily Dow gyrations!

Musk may be #1 on the Rich List here, but there’s One who eclipses him on every measure. He lives beyond time and space, but He chose to pay us a visit 2000 years ago. Here’s what the Journal’s highlight would have been on Christmas:

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” — II Corinthians 8:9

There’s the angle for Christmas that they’d hear on Wall Street.

The original Christmas gift was grace. It wasn’t on your wants list, but it was just what you needed! It remains God’s trademark deliverable; it’s the primary thing in His catalog every Christmas. Grace – that’s “unmerited favor” – is the key ingredient in His Christmas feast. God the Son – Jesus, the baby in the manger, the Lamb on the cross – personally delivered His grace to us when He came to the planet through the Incarnation, which happened at Christmas.

There are some rich guys today who have begun to give some of their money away, but none are on record with plans to give it all away. Anyone who starts out rich and becomes poor laments their bad luck. Not Jesus: He planned to move from Glory to gory; to wade in the filth of human misery on His mission to deliver grace. He wasn’t above it all; he was immersed in it all. Why?

Because He loves us! He sent His grace, wrapped it in love, and left it at the Tree – up on the hill called Calvary – for us to find and unwrap. Just what we needed; we can’t live – forever – without it.

There. Now I’m ready. Christmas is renewed again. Hope it was for you, too!

Bob Shank

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