That's A Wrap
When children walk into a room containing gifts under a Christmas tree they tend to gravitate to that spot and put on their "snoop."
The wrapping of presents can be a chore or well accepted creative challenge. We have a daughter in law whose love language is giving. She wraps gifts with a gorgeous flare. I used to let each grandchild select their own wrapping paper for their gifts. Now at my age and with 14 grandchildren to shop for, I'm just wanting to use up all the leftover paper or better yet, pop the gifts in a bag. For the out of town grands, most gifts come in a cardboard Amazon box with hopes their parents will wrap them.
A really fun friend shared a Christmas tradition of wrapping their four children's gifts in white paper and each child had a specific ribbon color on their gifts. The presents weren't under the tree, but hidden around the house to be hunted Christmas morning!
The words of Jennifer Kennedy Dean once again captivate me. She writes about Christmas afternoon. "The wrappings are gone and the gifts are the main focus."
She beautifully explains how and why God wrapped his Gift.
"You wrapped Your Gift in flesh and blood. The wrapping was such that it invited us into the Gift. Had you sent Your Son unwrapped, we could not have seen Him because the brightness of His countenance would have blinded us. Like the Israelites of old, we would have hidden our faces from Him in fear and shame...We will someday see Your indescribable Gift as teh angels see Him. I know that sight will be a different beauty than I have ever known. But I cannot imagine that it will be more breathtakingly beautiful to me than the King of Kings wrapped in flesh and blood for my sake."
Hebrews 2:14-17 explains it this way. We are people of flesh and blood. This is why Jesus became one of us. He died to destroy the devil, who had power over death. But he also died to rescue all of us who live each day in fear of dying. Jesus clearly did not come to help angels, but he did come to help Abraham's descendants. He had to be one of us, so he could serve God as our merciful and faithful high priest and sacrifice himself for the forgiveness of our sins.
The Song
"Messiah" Francesca Battistelli
