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My eyes bugged out when I came down the stairs on that particular Christmas morning. The present stood almost as tall as me, and because it was so big and so eye-catching, I was absolutely positive it just had to be the coolest present I had ever gotten or would ever get. My mind raced from one possibility to another about what it could be, and who I would call first to brag about it.
After half-heartedly opening several other gifts and encouraging my mother to hurry with hers, the time finally came to open The Present. Tearing into the wrapping paper, breathless with anticipation, eyes wide with excitement, it was . . .
It was . . .
It was . . .
A long-handled snow shovel.
*Sigh* Gee. Thanks.
Christmas seems like a good time to remember what God considers important is typically upside down from we consider important. That’s why people have such a hard time understanding concepts like love your enemies (Luke 6:27), to be great you’ve got to be a servant (Matthew 20:26), to be first you must be last (Mark 9:35), it’s more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 21:35), rejoice in suffering (Romans 5:3), and so forth.
Therefore, when God gave us all a present on the very first Christmas and sent the long-awaited Messiah and Savior of the world, He was not grandiose, showy and pretentious. The King of King and Lord of Lords was born tiny and helpless into humble, simple beginnings, and rested in an animal’s feeding trough (Luke 2:7). As He grew older, Jesus “had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). In other words, He was easy to overlook. I overlooked a number of much smaller, more meaningful Christmas presents to focus on the big attention-grabbing one, only to be let down.
This Christmas, remember “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). The person that embodied that gift - the most meaningful and precious gift any of us will ever receive - was so unassuming, modest, and unpretentious, that many people overlooked the tiny gift’s significance, and chose to focus on something eye-catching instead.
