Everything about how God decided to redeem humanity was entirely personal, intensely approachable, and innately powerful, wrapped in swaddling clothes. Following last year’s lead, we are going through a few stanzas of one of my Christmas poems. This one is called “The First Christmas Gift.”
It was a day like any other, Nothing special to see or to find When God gave His greatest gift Wrapped in His perfect design. On an average day like today A mighty God stepped down In an act of beautiful grace In a humble, little town.The Greatest Christmas Gift
A Gift
God’s plan of redemption was a priceless, unreciprocal gift. We could live a life of total sacrifice and give everything we have, and we can still be good enough to get into a perfect heaven. This is why Jesus’ coming is the greatest gift. Webster’s Dictionary defines the gift as “Something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation.”
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9
Unexpected
God planned for Jesus to come through the line of David from before Eve ate the forbidden fruit: Prophesies written and promises made for thousands of years culminated in one decisive moment. At Jesus’s birth, people in Bethlehem were busy and distracted like we are today. All the while, an eternity-altering, time-splitting, heavenly miracle took place on the outskirts of their busyness. No one expected God to come and walk the earth again with humanity. It was humble, understated, and thoroughly loving, God’s greatest gift in the form of an infant born to a virgin. God’s stunning plans for us happen in unexpected, humble places away from the stress, distractions, and noise of our busy lives.
