Jesus, come! Surprise our dullness,
make us willing to receive more than we can yet imagine,
all the best you have to give:
let us find your hidden riches, taste your love, believe, and live!
— Christopher Idle (ELW 312)
Did you receive a Christmas gift this year where, upon opening it, you said “you shouldn’t have?” Why do we say dumb things like that? Obviously, we sometimes mean it tongue-in-cheek, such as with a Yankee Swap gift (I’m sure whoever received my Executive Back Scratcher was tempted to say those words…) But sometimes—I would say most of the time—what we really mean when we say “you shouldn’t have” is “I don’t deserve this.” I don’t deserve it because I forgot to buy you something, or because you clearly spent much more than I did, or because I haven’t been that good at keeping in touch this year, or because I don’t even think I’m worthy of having such nice things.
Well, this year, someone called me on it. A friend of mine whom I barely see surprised me with a small gift: just some chamomile tea and homemade granola. And I, embarrassed that I didn’t have anything to give in return, and humbled that she would even think to give me anything, said, “Oh really now, you shouldn’t have,” to which she replied, “Well I shouldn’t with that attitude!” (Or something close to that…)
She said it with a laugh, but she was clearly hurt—not because I didn’t like the gift, but because I didn’t receive it as a gift. We are so accustomed to earning what we have in our society, and then feeling deserving of what we possess. Even families that have tried to scale back on their Christmas budgets by drawing names from a hat and buying for only one person still end up in the same predicament: you give one gift and you receive one gift. Everyone comes out “even” in the end. The idea that someone would just give us something because they care about us and not expect anything in return almost doesn’t register in our brains.
And yet that’s what a gift (in the truest sense) really is: receiving something you don’t deserve. It’s being surprised by someone’s generosity…taken aback by someone’s kindness…left speechless by an act of grace unplanned and unrewarded. Think of those K-mart shoppers who showed up to the layaway counter this holiday season to find their balances had been anonymously paid. That’s a gift. Better yet, think of Jesus doing the same thing with us.
My favorite line in the hymn quoted above (which is based on the story of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding feast) is “make us willing to receive.” Not make us worthy to receive, but willing—as in learning to stop being the person who says “you shouldn’t have” and instead is open to the possibility that someone somewhere —namely God—does love you unconditionally and wants to give you the “best he has to give,” the gifts of life, healing, forgiveness, and acceptance that we experience in Jesus.
We’ll never deserve those gifts, and we’ll never repay them, but God will always give them, because that’s just who our God is. That, if you will, is the real “epiphany” this season: that God has come among us not to collect on a debt but to pay it in full…to fill our empty vessels with his love and strength…to flood the dark places of our word, our hearts, and our minds with heaven’s light.
May that light that is Jesus shine upon you this season, and may you receive it as a gift!
Jon Niketh +
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