J. D. Greear - SEARCHING FOR CHRISTMAS;WHAT IF THERES MORE TO THE STORY THAN YOU THOUGHT?

The etiquette of Christmas gift buying can be quite stressful.

When I came home for Christmas the first year I was away at college, I met up with a girl Id been dating the year before. It was December 23rd. To be honest, it wasnt very clear what our relationship status was. (This was before Facebook, so I couldnt just check on there.) I had just left my parents house to drive over to hers when a panicky thought struck me: Am I supposed to have a Christmas present for her?

My mind raced. If she hands me a present and I have nothing for her, then this relationship is definitely over. On the other hand, if its already over and she doesnt give me a gift, I dont want to drop $75 on a girl I have no future with.

I found a sports store on the way, and I ran in and found a fluffy Adidas neck-warmer you wore when skiing. I thought it was perfect. It really screamed, Youre special. If she didnt want it, I could always use it. Plus, it was on sale for $7. I took it next door to a more upmarket store and persuaded them to gift-wrap it really nicely for me.

I was quite proud of myself.

I got to her house and left the present in the car. She opened the door, said Hi, and the next thing she said was I bought you a gift. I felt so relieved. I got you something too, I said.

She gave me her gift. It was in a beautiful gift bag, and it was a really, really high-quality jacket. It had clearly cost a lot more than $7. My gift was not going to cut it.

I was no longer feeling so proud of myself.

So I did what any teenage guy would do. Well, what any teenage guy who happens to have a sister three years younger than him would do. I told this girl that Id actually left my gift at home, and when we got there, I left her in the front part of the house while I found my mom in the back.

Mom, I said, in a voice of quiet desperation, Do you have a gift that you were going to give to my sister that she doesnt know about yeta really nice one?

Why?

Mom, I dont really have time to entertain questions at this pointdo you or dont you?

Yes.

I went over to the Christmas tree, found the gift, took my sisters name off it, and added this girls to it. Then I presented it to her.

What is it? she asked.

Its a surprise, I answered, more truthfully than she knew.

She opened it up. It was a sweater. An expensive one. She loved it. Phew.

The relationship, as it turned out, didnt work out (I know. Youre just as shocked as I am!) To this day, as far as I know, that girl doesnt know what happened (unless shes reading this book nowin which case, Im sorry). And to this day, though I hardly ever use it, I still own a fluffy Adidas neck-warmer.

All children know that presents are at the heart of Christmas. Most of us can remember, as kids, waking up at the crack of dawn on Christmas Day and asking, Can we get up now? Until I was 10 or 11, that day was the best day of my year. Why? Materialism. I knew I would get lots of great gifts from people who loved me. Later, I would learn that it was fun to give good gifts to people I loved, too.

Christians believe that at the heart of Christmas, and of life, is one particular presentGods gift to us of a baby. But what kind of present is it?

Is it a gift like the one I got into the car with on that December 23rd all those years agonon-existent? Is this baby just like the Santa Claus myth, which makes you feel comforted and sentimental in the Christmas season, but thats it, because its just make-believe?

Or is this gift like the $7 neck-warmerone that is given without much effort, that costs little to the giver, and that changes nothing very much?

Or is it like that jacketcarefully planned, expensively bought, and given with love?

I want to show you why Gods gift to you falls into the third category. To do so, I want to rewind back through history, but not to the first Christmas and the events were so familiar withthe manger scene, shepherds watching sheep, angels singing their songs, and wise men arriving. I want to go back further than that because theres more to the Christmas story than those oh-so-familiar events. I want to land back around 800 BC.

It was at that point that a man named Isaiah, claiming to speak as a messenger from God, announced that the L ord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive [and] have a son (from the Old Testament Bible book of Isaiah, chapter 7, verse 14).

A baby was coming who would be born in the most unlikelyhumanly speaking, impossiblecircumstances. Now, maybe the part of the Christmas story when a virgin gets pregnant is the part where you check out and file it as myth. But I think thats the part where you should sit up and listen: because that event was foretold over 700 years before. God had been preparing for the first Christmas centuries before Mary first laid her newborn baby in a feeding trough. This isnt a Santa Claus myth but real history (more on this in chapter 3). The most unlikely birth in human history was a sign from God that he is real, and that he really gets involved, because he really cares.

The people to whom Isaiah made this prophecythe people of Israelwere desperate to hear something, anything, from God. They were, said Isaiah, a people walking in darkness. It was a time of national crisis. Economically, they had been devastated. They were facing invasion, and so their very existence as a nation was under threat. There was a darkness of uncertainty about their future, of fear about their safety, of the feeling that they were all alone, of the sense that they were helpless and they were hopeless. There was the darkness of knowing that things had gone wrong and knowing that there was no way to put things back together the way that they were supposed to be. They were searching for something to hold on to. And God said that what they needed was the birth of a baby. What they were searching for was what he would do at the first Christmas.

As we come to the end of this year, we too know how it feels for everything we thought was certain to become suddenly uncertain. We know the sensation of the ground shifting and even sinking beneath us. Weve experienced the sense that there is no way to put things back together the way they used to be. Were aware more than ever, and perhaps for the first time, that prosperity, state-of-the-art medical systems, our nations economy, and even our own lives are more fragile than wed like them to be.

Most of us know something of the darkness and the shadows this Christmas. Maybe this Christmas youre unsure about what the next year holds for you: your job security is shaky; your marriage is crumbling; your health is fading. Maybe this is the first Christmas that youve felt alone. Or maybe youve felt like that for longer than you can remember. Maybe you dont know where to go or where to turn. Or maybe things are ok, but still you wonder if there is more, and you sense that maybe that more might involve God.

We are searching for something to hold on to. And God says to us the same as he said to those people facing darkness all those centuries agothat, perhaps without knowing it, were searching for Christmas. Strange as it may sound, God says to us that, in times of plenty and in times of crisis, what we most need is the birth of a baby:

A child will be born for us,
a son will be given to us,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
He will be named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9 v 6)

There are a lot of rules about choosing names for your children that nobody ever tells you about. For example, if you or your spouse ever dated anyone with a certain name, that name is off-limits. If a name reminds your spouse of a girl she didnt like in school, thats also off-limits. And then you need to think through how the first and last names work together. I found a list by a pastor and author, Craig Groeschel, of unfortunate name combinations of actual people (say these out loud to get the full comedic effect):