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CHRISTIANS MAKE A DIFFERENT CHRISTMAS LIST #3

BUYING A RELATIONSHIP WITH A FRUITCAKE

Here on the 20th of December, we’re kind of celebrating two events.  Of course, on Monday all of us will pause to reflect on that greatest of birthdays.  But here, still four days before Christmas, I’d like to share with you the “tale of two gifts,” so to speak.

Actually, the first one is a gift that never was.  Back on, December 24, in the year 1907, a baby was born — and his mom and dad, Mr. and Mrs. Hughes, named their son Howard. That’s right, Howard Hughes, the reclusive multimillionaire who stashed away his wealth, who hoarded his empire and hid out in a window-blackened suite in a Las Vegas high-rise hotel.  You recall, maybe, that he died on a plane en route from Acapulco to Houston, back in the year 1976, and he’s little remembered anymore.  But that’s one thing you can do with your Christmas money: pay a few dollars for bodyguards and keep all the rest for yourself.

The second birthday happening today isn’t really for a person, but for a song.  They tell me that the Christmas hymn, “Silent Night,” is celebrated each year on this date over in Oberndorf, Hallein, and Wagrain, Salzburg, in the country of Austria.  That’s where Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber first created this beloved song clear back in 1818, of course.  And for 179 years now, who could deny that it’s been one of the world’s favorites?  What a message it carries!

When you think about it, the entire “Silent Night” story is one of giving, isn’t it?  Abundant giving, incredible, unbelievable, unselfish, sacrificial giving . . . the King born in a manger.  And one line from verse three really captures the essence of that gift:

“Radiant beams from Thy holy face; With the dawn of redeeming grace.”

I guess we picture both the snowy forests of Austria, and the desolate hills of Judea with that line, don’t we?  And then — “The dawn of redeeming grace.”  “Undeserved favor,” “unmerited salvation” — that’s how we usually define grace.  And what a gift it is!  So here on the 20th we have this contrast: “The Tale of Two Gifts.”  One gift that really wasn’t, and the other which was and is and always will be, never to be matched again.

With these two anniversaries in front of us, let’s ask again:  why do we give Christmas presents?  What drives us?  And should Christians, as our series title asks, make a different Christmas list?

You know, even though the Voice of Prophecy isn’t really a corporate entity, we still do have a number of “business-connected” gifts that various Santa Clauses bring to our offices.  A book publisher will send a box of candy or a tin of gourmet  popcorn.  A telephone entrepreneur will mail us a nice Christmas bottle of champagne; (there’s an etiquette dilemma we’ve faced a few times!)  Various vendors seem to know where we are, and so we have these packages coming in.  And why?

Well, the answer’s almost engraved right there on the fruitcake.  They want our business.  They want to be our new long-distance carrier, the new publishers of our Discover Bible lessons.  With some of these presents, they may as well arrange the chocolate candies in the shape of a big dollar sign to make sure we don’t miss the point.

Well, that’s the way the world operates, and no one’s complaining, especially with the chocolates.  And sometimes all of us give presents as a means of investing; we hope for something bigger and better in return.

But more often, I hope, our gift-giving Monday will have to do with RELATIONSHIP.  We’re maintaining ties with those we love; we give to express that love, to solidify the bonds that hold us together.  Those are the best gifts, aren’t they?

And sometimes in an unselfish way, a present can be a kind of reaching out, a way of initiating the relationship where one doesn’t currently exist.  I mentioned yesterday that marvelous Christmas verse from Romans five, where we’re told this:

“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

And really, all through the pages of this Christmas letter we call the Holy Bible, there’s this consistent picture of a God sending down sleighful after sleighful of Christmas gifts, hoping to establish a relationship.  And He always goes first; heaven makes the opening bid each time.

I’m sure you remember the great line spoken by Christ Himself in John chapter 14:

“I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, THERE YE MAY BE ALSO.”

And you see, there we have it. Both the preparing of gifts — heavenly mansions in this case — and then the expressed desire:  Jesus wants us to be with Him.  He wants to live with us and be our King.  And He invests everything, He gives first, in the hopes of establishing that relationship.  A gift given to the entire world, for the purpose of making that first overture, that first outstretched hand toward friendship.  I like a line from the wonderful Christian bestseller, The Desire of Ages:

“Salvation is like the sunshine.  It belongs to the whole world.”

What does this mean for us, even as we make that last-minute trip to the mall tonight?  Do our gifts invest in relationship — I mean, unselfishly invest?  Are we so busy calculating the IN box versus the OUT box, to the point that we miss the example of Jesus in going first?  Of giving first?

Maybe you have a next-door neighbor who’s just always stayed on the fringes of your awareness.  Oh, you kind of give them a wave when you pull out and head off to work.  In fact, you do know their first name.  But you’ve never really gotten to know them; you’ve never connected beyond making sure neither one of you mows on the other person’s side of that connected expanse of lawn out front.

Listen, why not invest in RELATIONSHIP today?  Right now?  Get a gift for that neighbor, maybe a favorite book that’s blessed your life this past year.  Write a note in it, and then go over there Christmas Eve.  And tell them: “Look, I’m tired of just knowing your first name.  I want to know your last name too!  And what you do, and how you are, and can you take some of these extra fruitcakes off my hands.  (Meaning real fruitcakes, and not all of the nephews and nieces and their girlfriends and boyfriends who are staying with you for the holidays.)

Is there a relative that you’ve let slip out of your life?  You never were close anyway, and then there was that time back in 1986 when they kind of slammed you at that family reunion.  Hurt your feelings.  Well, that’s been 11 years now, and there haven’t been any cards or presents since then.  Why not close the book on that old feud; why not extend some of Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber’s “Silent Night” grace  on Christmas Eve?  Get on the phone this evening and call that person, tell them you were thinking about them.  And then say, “Look, I didn’t get a present in the mail until today, but just sit tight because you’ll have it next week.  And I’m so sorry about this 11-year gap in our friendship; life’s too short for that.”  Take the blame even if it doesn’t really belong to you.  Make that part of the gift.  Friend, why not take an hour right now, today, and send a gift that reaches out, that weaves the first thread in a new friendship?

I remember an anecdote that comes out of a favorite old Christian bestseller entitled “The Cross and the Switchblade.”  Maybe you remember the story of young Pastor David Wilkerson, who walked the snow-covered, grime-infested and crime-infested streets of New York City back in the late 1950s.  Even four decades ago, heroin and prostitution and knife fights were the standard fare for the gang members surviving in the Big Apple, including on Christmas Eve. 

And one kid, Jo-Jo, was the toughest kid of all.  At least he wanted people to think so.  He had no place to live; his home was the subway, he bragged.  President of the Coney Island Dragons.  And when Wilkerson, “Davey,” most of the gang members called him, came up to Jo-Jo and stuck out his hand, this skinny jailbird first of all slapped him, and then spit on his shoes.  Basically told him to go to hell.  And then walked away and sat down on a park bench with his back to the preacher.

What did David do?  He went over and sat down next to that kid.  And then noticed his old, ragged, ripped-up canvas shoes.  The boy’s toes were sticking right out the front.  And David Wilkerson reached down and unlaced his own shoes.  Took them off and handed them to Jo-Jo.  “These are for you.”  Brand new shoes.

Well, the clock says we have to make a long story short, and I know you have some shopping left to do tonight.  But that pair of shoes was an overture, an investment in a relationship.  Before the night was over — I mean, that very night — Mr. Jo-Jo, president of the Coney Island Dragons, was a born-again Christian.

Friend, I’ll be the first to say it doesn’t always go that way.  You might get slapped in the face, give a gift, and just get slapped in the face again for your trouble.  That estranged relative might hang up on you.  That “holy Infant, so tender and mild” who slept in the manger and then died for an ungrateful world, has had millions turn away and reject the overture.  But He still gave the gift, didn’t He?  And here, 179 years after choirs first sang “Silent Night,” the Christ Child’s example is still the one to follow.