As we enter the dreaded post-Christmas comedown, some people may have started wondering what the heck to do with all the Christmas presents they now have. Those of you with kids may even be seeing the gifts you put weeks of work and thought into starting to get discarded and forgotten. The weight of all this material stuff may start gathering up, and you could be saddled with that gift-receiving guilt I know all too well. When all the stuff that comes along with the Christmas season starts losing its shine and reality begins creeping back in, what do we do when the gifts feel hollow and unfulfilling?
Now as good a time as any is a good time for the reminder I like looking to after Christmas. Luke 2, the classic Christmas verse, encapsulates the glory of the Christmas season well, but also contains great instructions for what comes after in verse 20, when the Shepherds are leaving baby Jesus’s manger – “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” We’ve been spending quite a while now hearing about and considering the gift of eternal life Jesus’s birth sets into motion – the greatest gift of all.
As Paul writes in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Now more than ever is a good time to remember how serious a gift God has given us through His son. By our own nature, we rightfully deserve utter damnation, but through God’s grace He has gifted us eternity. We no longer need to worry about death or suffering or what comes afterwards – we know we are gifted eternity with God. How many gift cards or sweaters were you gifted this year that could obliterate death?
The world will try to tell us at all times how we can find fulfillment through physical gifts and the things of this world. But none of that will last beyond this lifetime, throughout history, or in some instances, even through this week. Now, after the birth of Christ, is the time to consider the one best gift we have received, that we could ever hope to receive. Ephesians 2:8 says “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Santa may have only given gifts to those who deserved it, but all of us believers can now ponder and praise God for the one gift no one could ever want to return.
Now, with this gift, what do we do? How do we handle such a powerful and important gift? Well, it’s just as the Shepherds did when they heard the news of Jesus’s arrival in Luke 2:20: “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” As we all begin rolling back into our regular routines, remember the gift we can tell others we received that will last forever – eternal salvation and happiness with God, given from His grace and goodwill. How could we not glorify and praise the Lord for this gift?