Christmas Accomplished

I feel heartsick and a bit nauseous every time I see a certain ad playing this season.  A beautiful and smartly dressed woman is shown shopping for, wrapping, and giving presents.  The closing line of the ad is “Christmas accomplished.”  I am sickened because it trivializes the true accomplishment of Christmas. 

I am not opposed to gift giving.  I have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks searching for items online and in stores.  I will spend time wrapping the gifts, mailing some to family out of town, and giving others during family occasions over the holidays.  I genuinely enjoy trying to find items that are needed or wanted.  I particularly delight in fulfilling the wishes of grandchildren (one of whom has bubble wrap on her wish list).  But, I am very clear, that is not the purpose of Christmas.  When all the gifts are purchased, wrapped and given, Christmas will NOT be accomplished.

Christmas was God’s accomplishment.  The Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, the One who is infinitely wise, loved us frail and flawed human beings so much, that He was willing to become one of us in order to reconcile us to Himself.  The greatest accomplishment of any human being does not match that.  The sum total of the accomplishments of ALL human beings is nothing in comparison.  This is a mystery beyond the comprehension of the human mind.  “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  (John 1:14)

The angels understood the significance and filled the skies with joyful singing.  Glory to God in the highest!  The shepherds, although not totally understanding, had enough of an inkling, that they traveled through the darkness to a stable where they knelt in awe.  The Magi traveled a great distance to bring gifts to someone they believed to be a mighty king.  Even Mary couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the event and pondered these things in her heart.

So…T J Maxx…your pretty lady has NOT accomplished Christmas. 

“God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  (John 3:16)

God gave the gift we all need.

He accomplished Christmas!

“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!”  (II Corinthians 9:15)

An Open Letter to My Son

Dear brilliant son….and anyone else who is highly gifted,

You may have the privilege of breathing the rarefied air of Google.  You associate with others of like mental capacity.  It is probably easy to think of those with an IQ within 20 points of yours as the norm. 

Think again.

I spent today at the county fair.  Walking past my booth was the complete spectrum of humanity, including those from the opposite end of the Bell curve.  Believe me, those in your circle are not the norm.  I saw folks today who are as many standard deviations to the left of the mean, as you are to the right.  I saw three generations who have been swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool.

It is easy to think of those in our usual circles of friends and acquaintances as typifying humanity.  Once in awhile, we need a wake-up call.

I remember the day when you were about two and a half years old, and you came to the kitchen to talk to me after church.  You announced with some consternation in your toddler voice, “Mom, those other children in the nursery talk funny.”  Uh-huh…other children your age were babbling syllables, and you were already talking in long sentences making observations about the world around you.  I thought, “And so it begins…how do I help him understand that he is different, and that this is a reason not for arrogance, but for compassion?”

So…I am reminding you today, because I was reminded myself, that with privilege comes responsibility; that any one of us could have been born with much less capacity.  We did nothing to earn our gifts…they were, indeed, gifts.  We may be proud of our accomplishments in developing what we were given, but not too proud.  Rather, we should be thankful and caring and giving and humble.

If you don’t need this message today, I do.