The Greatest Gift

It was some time in the nineteen-nineties. It was in the weeks and days approaching Christmas. My kids wanted a Nintendo 64. But, there were no Nintendo 64’s available anywhere in Toronto or anywhere. I knew this, because I think I had been to every store! I was trying to let my kids, Laurie and Paul, down easily, “Well, you know, a lot of boys and girls want Nintendo 64 this Christmas. Santa might not have enough to go around.” They looked at me with sad, puppy-dog eyes. I kept looking. It was four or five days before Christmas. I was in another Toys ‘r Us store looking for this coveted game system. I asked one of the clerks on the floor, “Any Nintendo 64’s?”

“Not today,” he said. And then he pulled me aside. He looked around as if he was about to share with me … the “GO” codes for the nuclear arsenal. He whispers into my ear, “Not today, but I’ve heard we may be getting three or four of them tomorrow at 4:00.” I had the “insider” tip I needed. I was there the next day at 3:30. I found the same clerk, “They’ve come in,” he confirmed, “they’ll be on the floor in a few minutes.” I left that store with my Nintendo 64 and felt like I’d just stolen the crown jewels from the Tower of London.

On Christmas morning, the carefully wrapped Nintendo 64 was under the tree, pushed all the way to the back. After all the other presents were opened, I said to Laurie and Paul, “What’s that big box at the back? Why don’t you see what it is.” Well, as you can imagine, it was a great Christmas!

Have you ever noticed, the older you get the more pleasure you receive from giving gifts at Christmas? When I was young, I was thrilled by the experience of receiving and getting. As I’ve grown older, I gain more excitement from the experience of giving. When we come into this world it’s all about receiving. We have very real needs, and we’re in a lot of trouble if there’s not someone around totally focused on meeting our needs, giving us what we need. The secret is to move along the continuum, and to become a giver, and if you were blessed, as I have been, there were people along the way who nudged you on - who taught you how to give.

Every December during my years at Humber Heights Public School, where I attended from Kindergarten to Grade 6, part of the weekly rhythm was to take time out from class, to work on the Christmas gifts we were making to take home on the last day of school before vacation. That was a wise thing for them to do. The teachers were very patient with us. The gifts themselves didn’t amount to much. I’ve received a fair number of these kinds of gifts myself over the years: the imprint of a child’s hand pressed into wet plaster of paris and painted light blue, was popular for a while; a Popsicle-stick pencil holder held together with glue and a red ribbon stood on my desk for years; hot pads, pot holders, and those wonderful tree ornaments with a picture of a beautiful first grader glued on - smiling out at you from among the pine branches with a great gap where front teeth used to be. It was important, and it was wise. Learning to give.

One of my creations for my parents - a personal favorite was a “Yule log candle holder.” I must have been in grade six. Our teacher, Mr. Dawson had a picture of what it was supposed to look like, probably from one of those Christmas ideas magazines back before Martha Stewart complicated the whole business. Nothing we produced quite measured up to that picture. The school janitor took us boys to the basement where he proceeded to saw the trunk of pine trees - whose branches had already been cut off for classroom decoration - into one foot lengths. We were each given one and patiently taught how to bore three holes in the log with a brace and bit - a real adventure!

The idea was to drill three holes, put three red candles in the holes, tie a green ribbon around it - a real Yule log! The problem was that, many of the logs, mine included, refused to remain upright when the candles were inserted and instead leaned to one side or the other. And I remember the janitor making small wedges of pine to put in place beneath the log to make it stable. At the end of it all, he concluded with this careful advice, “Fellas, maybe you shouldn’t light the candles.” We took those gifts home and presented them to our parents, our hearts bursting with pride and excitement and love. We were moving, taking small steps along that continuum, learning to give. How wise.

I treasure one Christmas memory. My son Paul was maybe six years old. He went Christmas shopping. He came home with his gifts, helped wrap and hide them, and then was told carefully, “Now remember, it’s a secret. Don’t tell anybody what you bought or where you’ve hidden the presents.”

Well, it was all a little too much. I was trying to read a book, when Paul came to me and said, “Daddy, I bought you a present but I can’t tell.”

“That’s nice,” I think I said.

A few minutes later he was back again. “I bought you a nice present, but it’s a surprise. I can’t tell.”

“Oh,” I must have said and returned to the book.

It happened a few more times. The pressure was building. Finally he said, “Please, Daddy, don’t look under my bed and find the socks I bought for you.”

How wise and good it is to learn to give. And how critically important – perhaps essential - to our humanity, our health, and, at the end of the day, our deepest joy and understanding of God. Learning how to give and love is fundamental to our spiritual maturity. It’s not an exaggeration to say, more than anything else in the world we need to learn how to love and give.

The great Russian novelist Dostoyevsky said, “I am convinced that the only hell there is, is the inability to love.”

Or, as St. Paul puts it, “Without love I am nothing.”

Most of us have experienced that mysterious, life-sustaining, life-giving power of love. We know how the touch of a loving hand makes pain, emotional and physical, more bearable. About the only thing doctors can think of to do for newborn babies, born addicted to cocaine, is to hold them tightly and rock them and love them.

Learning to give and to love is one of the most important life lessons of all—and the most precious gift. It is given to us by the love of others. The ability to give is given to us by the ones who loved us and who love us now. The unconditional love of parents, or a parental figure, is a resource that lasts a lifetime. And to be denied that, to never know it, worse yet to be neglected, rejected, or abused, is to live with the tragic burden of an anger and resentment that can last a lifetime.

And so we come again to Christmas and the story of a man and a woman living in the town of Nazareth, traveling south to the city of Bethlehem, just outside Jerusalem, because the Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, has ordered a census to be taken. The woman is pregnant. While they are in Bethlehem, she gives birth to the baby. And because the inn is already full, they stay the night in the stable out back, in the midst of cows and sheep and donkeys. They use the manger, the cow’s feed box, for the child’s cradle.

Think of the impact on human history that simple story has had. Think of the love generated by that story. It’s inspired people to be more kind, generous and compassionate to one another. But it’s even more than that. It’s a story about God: a story full of truth about the most fundamental reality there is. Embedded in the story is a breathtaking assertion: This is what God is like; the gift of this new life is God’s gift to us. God is the one who loves this world, loves us …

The story of Christmas is the story of God’s love. And the invitation is to receive the gift that has been given, to receive again the gift of God’s love in your heart, to welcome the newborn Christ again as the startling, surprising, love of God for you—and then to let it transform you, to live in and through you as you love and give.

One of my professors at seminary said to those of us in his class, “We do not find love by looking for it; we find it by giving it. And when we find love by loving, we find God. If someone came to me and asked, ‘How can we find God?’ I would answer, ‘Go find someone to love and you will find God.’”

I wrote those words down, because I wanted to remember them. The greatest gift of all is the ability to love and to give. It’s why the baby was born in Bethlehem so many years ago. It’s why the shepherds ran and angels sang. It’s what makes Christmas, Christmas for us, this year and every year. I hope we all find it: the perfect gift for someone we love, a Yule Log leaning badly to the left, a child who can’t keep a secret, a tiny handprint in plaster of paris that will sit on your desk for years.

It’s the gift and the love that makes the difference. It’s why God came, it’s why God came.