December 24, 2025 – Christmas Eve Text: Luke 2:1-20
Dear Friends in Christ,
Are you ready to unwrap some gifts? Maybe already today, or tonight, or tomorrow? It is fun to get a gift. As we get older, we probably enjoy the giving more, but then maybe you still enjoy the getting. It is a blessing to watch a child unwrap. I can still see the scene of our boys jumping around the living room when they received tickets to an Illinois basketball game. For kids, the unwrapping of presents is foremost on their minds.
Christmas is about the gift. Not the tinsel laden, bright-lighted glitz of the holiday. Behind the Santa and reindeer and snowman and shopping is something far deeper. This gift is wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. The gift of a baby who will save His people from their sins. We conclude our series, “Every Heart Prepare – Seeing Christ in the Holiday Decorations . . .
“WRAPPED PRESENTS”
One Christmas, a woman ran so rampant in her Christmas preparation that she went to a card store and picked up a box of 100 cards. She didn’t take time to read them. She signed them, stamped them and sent them off. She had one card left and she read it: “This card is just to say, a little gift is on the way.” Were people expecting a gift that would never come?
God made a promise that He would send a gift. We are not left waiting for it. It came, the promised Immanuel – God with us. He came to deliver us from captivity. He came to be our Savior. The angels announced it. “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you; you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” (v. 11-12).
Some of our wrapped presents our beautiful. We have in our midst tonight, I am sure, some wonderful wrappers. Bows and string and all the corners just right. Then you have me, and maybe you join in this. Too much paper, not enough paper, things a little askew. Everyone can tell who wrapped what. But you see I like that. The Christmas package Jesus was perfect, but not the setting or the people or the narrative. Hard travel, babies being killed, stinky accommodations. This was no wrapping to perfection, because He came for us that are less than perfect.
When we receive a wrapped present, it is distinguished by the name. When my whole extended family got together those many years ago, it took 20 minutes to get all the gifts distributed. Whose is it? Where are they sitting? When Jesus was sent, the recipients were every man, woman, and child. The newly delivered package was “a Savior, Christ the Lord.” As our sermon hymn, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” said, we needed someone “to save us all from Satan’s power when we had gone astray.” We were destined for death and destruction. We needed someone to save us from the deadly consequences of sin.
A mother was busy wrapping presents, and she asked her son to shine her shoes for the Christmas Day worship. She was so pleased at what her eight-year-old had done, she gave him a dollar coin. When she went to put the shoes on for church, she felt a lump in one shoe. She removed it and found the dollar coin wrapped in paper with this note from her son: “I done it for love.”
When we gaze at this baby wrapped in a manger, God says, “I done it for love.” God has given the greatest gift, because He has given Himself. It was for love that He grew up to offer his life as a ransom for many. Because of His life, death, and resurrection, you are forgiven and delivered from eternal death.
But there is more. God’s love gives additional gifts that result from the coming Christ. In the movie Christmas Vacation when Clark gets enrolled in the Jelly of the Month Club, Cousin Eddie says, “Clark, that’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year through.” Advertisers use that same line with their products. Consumers should expect a gift to please them on an ongoing basis. Some do, but some are soon forgotten.
The gift of a Savior has a lasting effect. Jesus brings a salvation that endures forever. He is the gift that keeps on giving. A baptism we can remember daily. A holy meal that constantly forgives. A Lord’s Prayer we pray for a lifetime. A Holy Spirit that renews our lives daily. Grace and mercy without end.
Enjoy those wrapped presents. Tear into them with joy. Thank the giver. Through the Holy Spirit keep wrapped up in the gift that is beyond compare – Jesus Christ. “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” A blessed Christmas!
Amen.