How Silently, How Silently

I'm up early this morning. Somehow can't sleep as images of Christmas dance in my head! It's the time in the season when I am pulling together all the details for church and home and, with heavenly help, hopefully remembering all I need to remember.

Interestingly enough, as I am piecing together in my mind the rehearsal for Christmas Eve that will take place later this morning, and, at the same time, going over my gift list to make certain that I have not forgotten any "special someones," a line from "O Little Town of Bethlehem" keeps playing in my head: "How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!" As Pastor Phillip Brooks penned these words, was he experiencing the same Christmas "anxiety" that I am experiencing? Was he concerned that the details of Christmas for worship and home would be so loud that he, that we, might miss God's Christmas present?

"How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!" In the midst of bombs blaring, soldiers and civilians dying, soldiers returning home, politicians posturing and losing sight of the human beings they are serving, a weakened global economy, unresolved health care concerns, churches struggling for life, God gives us the most amazing Christmas gift: One who restores the world to wholeness, the Prince of Peace!

How is it that we fail to receive it? Is the packaging too subtle? Should it have been wrapped in elegant paper and tied up with a gorgeous bow? Or in bright reds or greens with a candy cane adorning it? Are swaddling clothes too passe, too out of our experience, for us to even recognize the gift? Is God's gift, the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, doomed to be relegated to the nativity scene we have set up in our church or home?

"How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!" These words won't let me go! As I finish up coordinating the details for Christmas in church and home, I sense they will be with me, reminding me, calling me, to have "eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to receive" God's Christmas present to me, to you, to the world:
"For unto us is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord!"

What we do with the gift, once we receive it, is up to us. I'm hoping that I, that we, will unwrap the gift in 2012 and do with it something significant for the transformation of a world. I'm hoping that I, that we, do not leave it gathering dust on the shelf like that candy dish shaped like a chicken Mark and I received for our wedding almost 30 years ago, not wanting to get rid of it because someone went to the trouble of giving it to us; but never quite comfortable enough with it to use it. I'm hoping that we use it to make a difference in our homes, our city, our community, our nation, and our world.

For unto us is born!