Gifts!
Gifts! For several weeks now we have been thinking about gifts. Whether it was shopping for them, wrapping them or anticipating what we might receive. But the greatest gift of all is the one that we are here celebrating, “The gift from Jesus Christ!”
Grace is our gift from Jesus, what we do with it is our gift back to Him. Luke 2:7
„’By the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary… We genuflect at this clause, because at this point the heavens, the veil behind which God is secluded, are swept aside, and the mystery touches us directly. The distant God becomes our God, becomes Emmanuel‚ “God with us”‚ (Mt 1:23)
Pope Benedict XVI Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI, Magnificat
“Mary…laid Jesus in a manger – there was no room for them in the Inn.”
What did you expect to see when you came to the Church this evening (morning)? A beautifully decorated altar, with a familiar manger scene? Or, did you come to give praise and thanks to Mary for saying yes to God, and giving him a human body, so that he could enter this world to save us? Did you come with hope for a better and more peaceful world that he wants for all us?
The Christmas story that unfolded in the town of Bethlehem 2000 years ago began with an innkeeper who turned away the Queen of Queens who was carrying in her womb the King of Kings. The innkeeper may have even lived long enough to discover who it was he turned away that first Christmas night.
And if he did, he surely cried out in anguish:
“If I’d only known who it was I turned away!
If I’d only know who it was I turned away!”
Have we turned Jesus away? And will we do it again?
Well over a century ago, William Holman Hunt painted an unusual portrait of Jesus.
It still appears on Christmas cards and you may have even received a copy of it in your emails, showing an adult Jesus knocking at a door, seeking admission.
The painting has some unusual details – for example, we see Jesus holding a lighted lantern in his hand, symbolizing His words:
“I am the light of the world…whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness.” John 8:12
We also see that Jesus is wearing a crown of thorns, symbolizing His invitation to us to pick up our cross and follow him.
But the most striking detail of the painting is the door at which Jesus is knocking.
We see that it has no outside doorknob or handle. When someone asked Hunt about this, he said:
“I intended the door to stand for the door to our human hearts. That door has no outside handle either.
“The only way that Jesus can enter our hearts is if we choose to open the door and let Him in!”
This painting is a visual portrayal of that beautiful passage from the Book of Revelation, which reads:
“Listen! I stand at the door and knock; if any hear my voice and open the door, I will come into their house and eat with them, and they will eat with me.” Revelation 3:20
Many of us today hear Jesus knocking at the door of our hearts, but like the innkeeper in Bethlehem, we turn Jesus away.
Perhaps – up until this morning (evening) – we may have been one of these people.
But, now we have heard the knock of Jesus at the door of our heart – opened it, invited him in, and hear him say:
“Pick up your cross and follow me. I promise that I will help you carry it.”
“I will do much more. I will fill your hearts with the light, the love and joy for which it hungers.”
And so we picked up our cross and followed Jesus to our church this evening (morning). And here we are now sitting together around the Lord’s Table.
My brothers and sisters, I don’t think any of us has the slightest idea of how truly blessed we are on Christmas Day, sitting at the Lord’s Table.
About all we can say is that it is God’s beautiful Christmas gift to us. What we do with it in the days ahead will be our gift back to God.
Let’s make our gift something beautiful for God… Let’s make it the gift of ourselves to God, just as God made himself a gift to us 2,000 years ago – and He will again in the Eucharist a few minutes from now!