December 24-25, Nativity of the Lord: Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)
There are many ways we receive the gift of Jesus badly.
My mind is on gifts. The ones I’ve purchased and squirreled away (I hope I can find them); the ones I’ve not yet purchased; the ones I hope someone will give me. I think of myself as a pretty good gift-giver, and I take a lot of pride in it. Possibly—probably—this pridefulness damages the gift giving a little, making me less great at it than I like to imagine. My motives are mixed: I am not giving just to give, but also because I like think of myself as a great gift-giver.
This time of year, the mind also turns to the gift that is Jesus. Is there any way to rescue the notion of Jesus-as-gift from the hideous Yuletide clichés about Jesus as the first Christmas present, Jesus as the best Christmas present ever, and so on?
How might we describe the gift of Jesus? In the person of Jesus, the church has been given the gift of Jewish flesh—specifically, the gift of the Jewish flesh that extends intimacy with God to gentiles. The beginning of Luke 2 takes pains to show that Jesus is part of a particular family, a particular lineage—a Jewish family and lineage.
