For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all… He it is who gave himself for us… Titus 2:11,14 (NRSV)

When we give a gift we do so with out the guarantee of an “appropriate response”. That is, we do not automatically assume that the person will even say thank you, or that they will use it all the time, or that they will love it so much they are speechless with joy. We would like all of those things to happen but it would not be a real gift if it comes with strings attached.
You might say, “don’t undo all the work I have done teaching my children how to behave when they receive a gift”. It is important that we teach our children how to say thank you and to express appreciation for a gift. But something is a gift, a real gift if it is given without guarantee of any response.

At Christmas we give gifts. We give gifts because that is what you do at Christmas. We give gifts because we care about people. We give gifts because at the heart of the Christmas story is the gift.

He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us…
God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public…
… He offered himself as a sacrifice… (Titus 2:11,14 The Message)

At the heart of the Christmas story is God giving himself because he loves human beings so much he wants us to have all that is good in life. Most parents would see their children as a gift that they rejoice in. Our children are a gift so wonderful we spend the next 20 years of our life (at least) nurturing, providing for them, surrounding them with love. As Christians we say that the baby Jesus born not only as a gift to Mary and Joseph but as a gift to the whole of humanity. Not only do we say Jesus is a gift but that Jesus is God himself giving himself for us.

What is God giving us when he gives us this gift? Any gift we give expresses something of our love for that person. I guess you can communicate that you don’t love some one by the gift you give them. I met a man recently who admitted somewhat sheepishly that he had forgotten his wife’s birthday on one occasion and so he gave her the only thing he had bought at a shop the day before. It was an axe. He nearly received it back between the eyes. He would have shown more love if he had admitted that he had forgotten.

The Gift that God gives us in giving himself expresses a love so great that most of us can’t comprehend the depth and breath of this love. When we see parents of very sick children caring for their children, day after day, week after week and month after month we begin to catch a glimpse of the love God has for you and I. In the giving of Himself God gives love to us.

As we begin to appreciate this love that God has for us we realize it includes forgiveness. Humanity seems capable of wanton destructiveness so awful that you wonder if we will survive another century. My daughter Freya has been this year to the site of the twin towers in New York and a Concentration camp in Germany. A few years a go she went to Hiroshima. Just in those three places alone there is ample evidence of man’s inhumanity to man. Yet the gift of Jesus brings the gift of forgiveness. God invites us to wipe clean the sins of our past.

Having unpacked some of the gift of love and forgiveness we discover woven into our gift the gift of abundant life. You can’t separate love and forgiveness from this gift. It is life that is rich with Joy and celebration, peace and gentleness, with hope and goodness. This abundant life that comes woven into God’s gift stretches out into eternity. Like all that God gives we can’t measure the life he gives.

Once we have immersed ourselves in this gift of abundant life we discover courage. May be this splitting hair to separate courage out from the many rich elements of life in Jesus but I think it is special. It is certainly connected to and supported by the things I mentioned before: peace, joy, gentleness hope. When we live our lives in Jesus we can face the world with confidence, with courage, with faith.

Last but not least the gift that God gives in Jesus includes freedom. All of these attributes of life in Jesus bring freedom. It even includes freedom to say no to all of God’s gracious love. But once you embrace the gift, or even just wanting to embrace the gift you discover a new freedom. It is freedom that helps us leave slavery and oppression, that sets us free from drugs and other addictions, and it frees us from relationships that suffocate us.

What is our response to this amazing gift? In effect it is very simple. As we say yes to God in receiving his gift we begin to be like Jesus. We begin to love others. I only say we begin because it is a life long process learning to love. Each stage of our life there are new opportunities to grow our love. Even though our love may have come out of first being loved, as we grow in our ability to love we also appreciate more the extent to which God loves us in the first place. So our response to God’s love for us in Jesus is to love, to love other human beings.

That love in turn leads us into forgiveness. We can’t truly know the forgiveness of God with out becoming forgiving. Like love our ability to forgive changes and grows. The deeper the pain we have experienced the harder work it is to truly forgive. But as we do grow to that level of forgiveness we understand, we appreciate God’s forgiveness.

Of course this then flows on to the other elements of who Jesus is. As we appreciate the abundant, the eternal life we have in Jesus we begin to nurture life in others. Our words, our actions, the work that we dedicate our lives to, all of this becomes more and more life giving, life affirming.

Again as we unwrap some more of who Jesus is and discover freedom we begin to allow more freedom in others. We become people who have high expectations for all people to enjoy freedom in all aspects of their life.

Finally but not least we become more courageous. It is not courage based on power. It is courage based on who Jesus is. Like Jesus facing up to the cross it is courage based on weakness. That sounds like double dutch. May be it is. But as we say yes to Jesus and respond in new ways to his love we discover we do not need power or bravery. We live by faith.

I have tried to convey something that at one level is simple. Jesus is the gift. In Jesus we discover the love God has for us. It is a love that includes forgiveness and life. It is life that comes with Freedom and courage. Our response to all of this is to become like Jesus, loving, forgiving with a desire for others to have life in all its fullness.

While it is simple it seems to me we need to return to this simple message each year of our life to begin to plum the depths of who Jesus is. All of these things love forgiveness etc. take on new depths. What was simple seems to become more complicated, but then we rediscover a new simplicity. Jesus is the Gift. God loves you and me.