Christmas is a time of gifts. It has always been so. Today though, it is all too often nothing more. As such, it often leaves us empty: Yearning, seeking to hold on to the day which is, like all days, fleeting — a mere twenty-four hours. This too will always be thus, so long as our Christmas gifts are only temporal ones.
Gifts were part of the first Christmas. The shepherds came with praise and fabulous tales of what angels had told them. That the angel Gabriel had already foretold such things to Mary made her ready to accept these.
Then there came the Three Wise Men, each bearing a gift. One brought gold: a gift fit for a king. One brought frankincense: a gift fit for a deity. One brought myrrh: a gift fit for a burial.
Each of these gifts was also a revelation. The shepherds’ tidings were not simply news. The Wise Men’s gifts were not simply the material objects of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. It was because these were revelations that Mary “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke, 2:19)
All truly great gifts are in their own ways revelations. They reveal the giver. This revelation is what the giver seeks; it is also what the recipient wants. Such revelation elevates the gift. It imbues the gift with a memory of the one who gave it.
We want our gifts to be memorable. We search to find the right one; we weigh our options as to which would be the most memorable. Which would have the greatest impact on the recipient.
We do all this because if our gift is just the item, regardless of its expense, it is merely transient. Temporal. Time will someday overtake it, or us.
Eventually, time separates us from mere things. We only hold them for a while. They wear out or are used up. If they are not, then they are passed on to someone else.
Either way, if something is just a thing, we hold them but for a moment. If you do not believe this, go to an estate sale. Or a city dump. Both are the same destination of separation of things from us, only reached from different directions.
At an estate sale, perhaps there are a few objective treasures. However, most things are swept away in an instant. The buyers see less than what the previous owner saw in them, and they appraise them accordingly. Those things which do not meet even that lowered bar are discarded altogether.
Both happen because those appraising them do not have the memory with which they were imbued by their previous owner. Without those memories, all are mere things and treated as such.
Imbued with revelation, a memory is created and a thing elevated beyond itself to the recipient. The givers are remembered, sometimes beyond the givers themselves. The giver lives on and the item is cherished far beyond its intrinsic value.
The gift revealing the giver is certainly the revelation that applies to the greatest, the truly first, Christmas gift. God revealed himself through Jesus.
As all true parents know, nothing approaches the importance of their child to them. God knew this more sublimely than we ever will. In his giving of his son to us, he gave the greatest gift he could in his desire to reveal himself and the fullness of his love for us.
Jesus would carry God’s revelation on throughout his temporarily short life and even shorter ministry. He would give its ultimate revelation in his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Only then was the fullness of God’s gift revealed.
God gave the first and the ultimate Christmas gift. Unlike all the others, it is the only one we will ever receive that is not temporal. It is eternal.
Only at the end did Jesus’ disciples realize the real gift. Until then, to them God’s gift was a temporal one too. Only in revelation were they able to understand — to accept — the true gift in its fullness.
To Jesus’ disciples, this gift is still there for the receiving. For the accepting: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Then. Now. Eternally. It is still the revelation — the revelation of the giver — that makes this the ultimately transcendent Christmas gift. Just as God intended.
J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left from RealClear Publishing. Follow him on Substack.
