Advent is a time when we prepare ourselves and our hearts to welcome the Lord Jesus and with it comes preparation for a number of Christmas festivities.  Foremost among them is an exchange of gifts which is symbolic of God’s greatest gift to humankind__ the Christ Child. From that very first Christmas ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’ have been key objectives of this glorious celebration.

God gave us His only begotten Son so that whoever believed (and therefore received) Him would have eternal life (Jn.3: 16).  The wise men in turn gave Jesus precious gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense, while the shepherds gaveHim praise and honour.  A popular carol tells us of a Drummer Boy who, for lack of material possessions, was a little intimidated at first, but finally hit upon the most brilliant idea-- he decided to give his heart to Jesus.  Clearly, the choice of gifts is unlimited.  More importantly, we need to take note of the fact that both giving and receiving are equally important; for God’s greatest gift to humankind would have no meaning if there were no receivers.  Further, do we not feel a certain sense of satisfaction when we offer our thanksgiving to God for His great mercies and blessings?    Giving and receiving is meant to be a reciprocal equation.  God Himself has blessed each one of us with ‘n’ number of material and spiritual gifts.  Surely, He accepts our praise, thanks and humble modes of reciprocation, in acknowledgement of the same. However, the spirit of gift-giving that God intended lies primarily in spreading the divine elements of Joy, Love and Peace.  Unfortunately, much of this Biblical significance of gift-giving and receiving has, today, been lost in the narrow, though multiple, streams of commercialism and materialism.

Only when gifts are essentially a metaphor for Joy, Love and Peace, do they have the required effect, and translate into elements of Divine energy that God intended.  He gaveus His Son so that we may be restored to eternal life and consequently be engulfed in a river of Joy, Love, Peace, all of which are blessings bestowed upon us by the birth of the Christ Child.

JOY: God revealed Himself to us through His Son so that, in His words, “My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (Jn. 15:11).  His greatest commandment is that we spread LOVE __ “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn. 13:34).  Above all, He gave us the indescribable gift of PEACE: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you not as the world gives do I give to you (Jn. 14:27).

Let us use this beautiful tradition of giving and receiving, not to indulge ourselves in materialism, but rather let the material be a means to a spiritual end—that of spreading JOY, LOVE and PEACE.  For this purpose did God give us His Son.

We wish you all a Blessed Christmas and a Christ-centred 2012.  

Dr. Melva Pope