Pastor Burcham's Sermon

Sunday, Christmas Eve, December 24, 2006

It's almost here, isn't it? It's getting closer and closer, the moment you all have been waiting for, for 364 days. For some of you, it will be tonight. For others, it will be tomorrow morning. Some of you get a bonus. You'll do it both tonight and tomorrow morning. What's the moment you've been waiting for, that you've anticipated? Gifts, of course. Presents. Opening up your gifts and presents. That's right. Paper would be flying. Ribbons will be shredded. Bows will be tossed aside and who knows what happens when the kids get at their gifts? No, don't try to fool me, Mr. Can't Wait Until I Try Out My Son's New Video Game, Miss I Hope That Little Box Has a Big Sparkle Inside. Gifts. All of us, at one level or another, are anxious to either give our gifts or to receive our gifts. It's part of our Christmas celebration. It's part of what we do this time of year and why shouldn't it be? Why shouldn't gift giving and gift receiving, the exchange of presents, why shouldn't that be a part of our Christmas celebration? After all, when we give a gift to another person, isn't it just a message of love? Isn't it a way in which we express our love to another person in a real and tangible way? Otherwise, why in the world would we scour the Sunday paper for all the ads? Why would we fight the traffic? Why would we elbow our way through the crowds at the mall? All in search of the perfect gift, that one thing we know that person will really like. Why? Because we want to express our love to them. We want to express how important they are in our lives, and we want to do it with something that's tangible, something they can see, something they can feel and touch.

Can't we really trace that back some 2,000 years ago? Trace it all the way back to the first Christmas? When we had the love of God, the Father in heaven? When the Father loved us so much He wanted to express that love? He wanted to demonstrate that love to us. So the Father said to His heavenly Son sitting at His right hand, “You go down into the world.” God expresses His love in a real and tangible way. He comes to us as a human being, someone we can see, someone we can touch, someone we can listen to. Isn't Christmas about God expressing His love to us, God giving His gift to us, and that gift being something which is real and tangible?

You see, if you really want to understand this whole gift-giving thing we do at Christmas time, then look no further than the first Christmas. And if you want to understand Christmas, then look no further than the first gifts. So when we look back at the gifts the Father has given to us, we notice the gift the Father gives to us is the gift of presence over the gift of presents. He gives us the gift of Himself. He doesn't give us something which is wrapped up in paper and has a bow and a ribbon on it. What God gives us is the gift of His presence among us. And after all, isn't the gift of presence more powerful, more meaningful than the gift of presents?

Now for the younger ones in the crowd tonight, don't worry. I'm not going to go on a rant about the over commercialization of Christmas and how we should return all of our gifts and tonight we should just sit around the family room with hot cocoa and enjoying each other's company. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is it's a matter of degree. Presence over presents. Which is more important? Which is longer lasting? Which means more? Which is more of an expression of love, the presence of someone or the presents which they give?

An example: A couple of weeks ago, I found out my brother and his wife are coming to visit us on Wednesday of this week. Ever since that time, I've been so excited. I can't wait. My brother's only been here three times. I've been in Iowa for over 20 years. My sister-in-law has never been here. So for the first time ever, she's going to step on Iowa soil. I'm so excited. That's the greatest gift I could have this year. Everything else that's underneath the tree really pales in comparison to the fact that he's coming to visit me because his presence will be here. I'll get to share the holiday with him. So if I were to compare that to what we usually do each year, usually each year I send him something from Hickory Farms and he sends me a crate of oranges, now given the choice, I'll trade in both the oranges and the Hickory Farms if I can have him here. You see, it's the gift of presence over presents.

Did you see the front page of the Register today? It had a bunch of pictures of soldiers that are stationed around the world, and the headline says they won't be home for Christmas. Talk to each one of those families. Ask them which would they rather have. Would they rather have a shiny new gift, a nicely wrapped present? Or would they rather have Mom or Dad, Son or Daughter home for Christmas? You see, presence wins out over presents. And God knew that because God gives us the gift of His presence.

The greatest gift that was given that first Christmas wasn't the frankincense. It wasn't the myrrh. It wasn't even the gold. It was the gift of God's presence, of Emmanuel, God with Us. Let's think back for a little bit, to Mary and Joseph on the road to Bethlehem . Let's say they were making their Christmas list. What could be some of the things they would put on their list? Probably bare necessities, right? A comfortable bed for Mary to lie down on tonight and get ready to have the baby, some warm shelter to bring her out from the weather, maybe a nice, hot meal to make us comfortable when we finally get to Bethlehem. Do you think they would have traded and done the night any differently? Do you think they would have traded a comfortable bed in place of holding the Son of God in their arms that very night? Consider this. The comfortable bed, the nice room, the hot meal would have quickly been forgotten but here we are gathered some 2,000 years later and we're still remembering the Son. We're still remembering the gift of God's presence.

When God wants to display His love of us in a real and a tangible way, He comes to us. In the past, He sent His prophets and His prophets spoke His Word in truth and purity. Even at times, God sent His special messengers, the angels, and the angels came and they spoke for God. But on this night, on this night God Himself came. He didn't send a prophet. He didn't send an angel. He sent His Son. And so there, growing in Mary's womb, being born, there is God's presence among us. That God would love us so much that He would be willing to become one of us, God knows what it is to be a child. God knows what it is to live through adolescence. God knows what it is to be a teenager and a young man. God knows everything of what it is to be a human being because He left heaven above to become one of us, the greatest gift God gave is the gift of His presence.

And He promises He's still with us. When He went bodily into heaven, He said to His disciples, “Don't worry. I'll be with you to the very end of the age.” Jesus said even though bodily He's going up into heaven, He says with everyone who calls upon His name, He still dwells within us. He dwells in our hearts. So that means even here tonight, 2,000 years later, we still experience the presence of God with us. Every moment of every day, God is still here with us. It's the gift of presence over the gift of presents.

But God's gift was special and unique in another way as well because it was a gift of grace. A grace gift is one that is unexpected and maybe even more so, undeserved. Think back to some of the gifts you've received over the years. Which are the ones that hold a lasting meaning to you, ones you can still pinpoint and remember? Aren't they the ones that caught you off guard? Completely unexpected? Aren't they the ones you never dreamed you would ever receive, that you didn't think it was possible you could get such a gift? It's the unexpected. It's the undeserved gift. It's the grace gift that really has an impact on our lives.

John Ortberg has a wonderful story in a book he wrote. The book he wrote is called Everybody is Normal Until You Get to Know Them . It's a great title, isn't it? I wonder if he came up with the title and then wrote the book. It's great. But he tells a story in here of another John, a John Gilbert. He said he considered John Gilbert his friend, although the two of them never actually met but they exchanged a lot of letters between the two of them. You see, John Gilbert, at the age of 5, was diagnosed with a severe case of muscular dystrophy, a debilitating disease that, one by one, would capture all of his muscles and, by the age of 25, actually take his life away. So the two Johns wrote back and forth to one another, sharing life experiences. And so John Gilbert would share some of the things of what it was like growing up with that kind of a disease. He said, “It seemed like there for awhile, each year, I lost something more.” He says, “One year, I lost the ability to run so I could no longer play with the kids in the neighborhood or at school.” He says, “Another year, I lost the ability to walk and so now I couldn't even keep up with my friends in the hallway.” And then he shared a really tragic story of when he was in Junior High and we all know how rough Junior High is. And for a person in his condition, his was a living hell. Ridiculed, made fun of. He said he finally stopped going to the lunchroom because there was a bully there who was relentless, relentlessly just picking on him, pushing him, and nobody stood up for him, so he just stopped going. Shortly after that, he wrote to John Ortberg. He said, “What a silly species we are. We all need to feel accepted ourselves, but we constantly reject others.” But not all of his experiences were terrible. He recalls one experience that was a highlight in his life. He was out in California , and the NFL invited him to one of their charity auctions. He would be one of the guest of honors. So his mom and he attended a charity auction. As they walked in the door and of all this sports paraphernalia that's around that's going to be auctioned off for charity, John zoomed in on just one item. It was a basketball. Not just any basketball, mind you, an official NBA basketball. Not just any NBA basketball but a basketball that was signed by every member of the Sacramento team. John wanted that basketball. He said he wanted that basketball more than anything else. He had a strong desire for that ball like he'd never felt before. He could not take his eyes off that ball. He stared at it all during the auction, kind of oblivious to everything else that was going on. And then finally the ball came up for bid. He says without even thinking, just instinctively, he says, “I raised my hand to bid.” He says, “My mother pulled that sucker down so fast I couldn't believe it.” He said, “There's no way we could ever afford to even put an opening bid on such an object at an auction like this.” So all John could do was sit there and listen as the bid went higher and higher to astronomical amounts really, far more than the ball could be worth. And then finally in the back, a gentleman raised his voice and he topped all the others and put just a ridiculous bid out there and it quieted the whole room. Done. He won the bid. So the man got up to claim his prize. He walked up to the front of the room. He grabbed the basketball, held it in his arms. He turned around as if he was going to go back to his seat, and he walked over to John Gilbert and he placed the ball in his hands. He placed the ball in hands that would never dribble it down court, hands that would never be able to fire off a pass to a teammate, hands that could never go up for a lay up, but hands that would cherish that ball until the day they died. Of that experience, John Gilbert wrote this, “It took me a moment to realize what he had done. I remember hearing gasps all over the room, then thunderous applause and seeing weeping eyes. To this day, I'm amazed. Have you ever been given the gift that you could have never gotten for yourself? Has anyone ever sacrificed a huge amount for you without getting anything in return except the joy of giving? Have you ever been given a gift that you could have never gotten for yourself? Has anyone given you something and sacrificed a huge amount without getting anything in return but the joy of giving?”

My Friends, if you understand Christmas, you can answer yes to all of John's questions. You can answer yes, that you've received a gift you could never comprehend you could receive, a gift that came at tremendous cost that was willingly paid, willingly given just for the joy of giving. The angel, Gabriel, said to Joseph, “You're to give the name of the child Jesus because He will save His people from their sins.” The angel has proclaimed to the shepherds, “To you this day in the City of David , a Savior has been born. He is Christ the Lord.” It is the gift of God, the gift that none of us could have hoped to obtain, the gift that none of us could ever earn, the gift that some of us could never, ever hope could be ours. It is the gift of forgiveness. It is the gift of being free from our sins and our guilt and our regrets. You see, the babe God gave on Christmas grew up to be a man. And although He was sinless in every way, yet His own creation would nail Him to a cross and laughed as they did so. His same creation would watch as He died upon that cross and would spit upon Him and jeer at Him and, while He was on that cross, the sins of all of mankind were heaped upon His shoulders and He alone would pay the awesome debt of all of our sins. And then three days later, He would walk out of that tomb and He would hand to each one of us the gift of forgiveness, the gift of salvation.

Has anyone ever given you a gift that you never dreamed possible? At tremendous costs? But doing it only for the joy of giving? If you understand Christmas, the answer is yes. God willingly sent His Son so He could die in our place and He could give to us the gift of forgiveness so we no longer have to deal with guilt or regret or remorse and to give us a place in heaven where we'll spend an eternity with Him. That's God's gift of grace. That's God's gift at Christmas.

God offers you that gift here tonight. Will you accept His gift? Will you accept God's gift of presence in your life, knowing He dwells in your heart? Will you accept God's gift of grace, a gift you could never dream of gaining for yourself or one that's freely given, at tremendous cost to Him but He gives it joyfully and willingly? Will you know the love of the Father? That's what Christmas is all about. That's what the gift of Christmas is all about.

May I be so bold as to suggest you would take your cue from the first Christmas as you now go off to celebrate your Christmas with your family and with your friends? Can you give the gift of presence to those you're with? What I'm saying is don't just be there in body at the family table or at the family gathering but truly be there, be present with everyone who is there. Can I ask you to not pay so much attention to the football and pay more attention to your spouse? Can I invite you to spend more time with the kids and don't worry about the family feast quite so much? Give the gift of yourself. Give the gift of presence over the gift of presents. Can you give a grace gift?

More than likely, over the next few days, you're going to be gathered together with people who well, frankly, maybe you don't care for them. There are probably one or two who are going to irritate you and rub you the wrong way. Can you give the gift of grace to them? Even though it's unexpected and, I don't know, maybe it's undeserved, but can you reach out a hand in love to them and embrace them this Christmas? You see, that's what this gift giving is all about and if you want to understand this gift giving, look no further than the first Christmas. And if you want to understand Christmas, look no further than the first gift. Amen.

Copyright 2006 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church