As one of seven kids, there were a lot of presents to wrap - even though there wasn't a huge amount of money to spend on toys and such. Many presents were things like needed new socks, sweaters, and other things we needed. So there I would be late in the afternoon shut in my mom and dad's room with tons of things to wrap. Sometimes I had to check and make sure I was matching the right gift with the right person and sometimes I would find myself wrapping my own presents. But all in all, I knew the job well. Mom had trained me and a big part of my training involved learning not to "waste" paper and tape by using too much.
Mom's concern about waste was also evident as the presents were unwrapped. There was to be no rushing and ripping of paper to get at the presents beneath. Instead, we learned to carefully take the paper off, minimizing and damage to the paper which was then folded and put away to be used again. Bows, as inexpensive as they were, were also to be saved to be used again. Boxes were folded, stacked inside each other and put aside to be used again. This care went along with the way in which presents were handed out and unwrapped one by one so that notice was taken and thanks given for each gift. If one of us noticed that our pile was heavy on the socks and underwear and thin on the "fun" side, we learned that eventually (usually as late as June or July) we would get an unexpected gift from Mom with "I thought I had something else I forgot to give you at Christmas".
I know as a child, I often moaned about the gifting of things I needed like socks and underwear. I wanted to find other things under the tree. I wanted all the stuff that everything around me told I should want for Christmas, toys, dolls, a bike, games, and other fun things. I'm pretty sure I never sat on a santa's lap and asked for new socks and I would have made a good case for needing the fun stuff I wanted. Yet as I grow older, I find I am less and less interested in getting more stuff.
This time of year, even while there is an emphasis on buying more stuff, there is also a competing emphasis on Christmas giving. People often focus on charitable giving towards the end of the year; it makes sense tax-wise and it appeals to our sense of generosity. Perhaps it makes us feel a little less guilty for what we do spend on toys and luxuries. Giving to help those in need is an impulse we should follow all year long. Need never goes away just because we pack away our Christmas baubles.
The early Christian church saw as completely central to the teaching of Christ the work of caring for those in need: widows, orphans, the sick, the poor, and those in prison. Gifts of food and money were brought to worship to be distributed to those in need. It was obedience to Jesus' own command to feed the hungry and to show God's love by loving even the unlovable around us. Scripture repeatedly teaches that God's love will be made know in the world by how we show that love in our words and actions. John writes, "How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?" (1 John 3:17)
The coming King we wait for was born in a stable, beginning his life as a refugee and ending his life hanging on a cross. It only seems fitting that we find it easier to meet our Lord in the kind of places he walked and with the lost and the least for which he gave his life. In reaching out in love, we meet Love face to face. Read 1 John 3:16-24
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