One of my favourite things about the Christmas season is the buying, wrapping and giving of gifts to friends and family. I love spending the time to get the right gift for each person, trying to find something that they would love and appreciate. I also get great pleasure out of giving the gift and watching them unwrap and enjoy the thing I have picked out for them.
At this time of year, it is very easy to get drawn into the consumerism of the season. We are encouraged to buy the latest trends for children and bigger and better gifts for our loved ones. Sometimes we can feel under pressure to find the perfect gift for someone and spend more and more money. It is easy to feel overwhelmed. This message is such a contrast to the scene of Jesus’ birth that we read about in the Bible and we see in the carol ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’.
Throughout the carol we see the contrast of a God that Heaven can’t hold and Earth can’t sustain being born into a lowly stable with the animals. We see a God usually worshipped by cherubim and seraphim being worshipped and adored by an exhausted teenager who had just become a mother.
Jesus throughout his life showed that God is a God of contrasts, stating things like ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’ (Matthew 5:44). He also showed us it most powerfully when the God who created the Heavens and Earth died hanging on a wooden cross at the hands of the very people he had created.
The final verse of the carol, my favourite, is a powerful contrast to the consumer message we often see at this time. It considers the gifts given by the shepherds and the wise men as they visited the baby Jesus. The carol concludes with the idea that the greatest gift we can give to Jesus is our heart. God isn’t about expensive gifts, fame and fortune or even working ourselves into the ground to help others.
This Christmas season God is challenging each of us to take a step back from the hustle and bustle and to come away from the pressure of buying the perfect gift. He is asking us to humbly come before the Christ child, who is wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a feeding trough, and offer up our hearts and lives to him.
