I think we’re done with it – for this year. I’ve never been good at it, don’t particularly enjoy it, but I’m getting better. A part of me thinks “why bother?” It seems such a waste of paper that just gets ripped apart to get to the gift inside. I know it can be perhaps re-used, but who has the time on Christmas morning?

This is a confusing blur of time we’re in. Fatigue sets in; tempers get short because oh the pressure! Trying to think of everything; are all the bases covered? Have we gotten the right things for the right people? Guilt ensues when we receive a gift from someone not on our list, and of course we should reciprocate. In some years we have back-up, just-in-case presents.

Food gets wrapped too – parchment paper lining cookie tins. My mother baked stolen bread, wrapping each loaf with a bow on top. Forty-something loaves that we delivered and gave to family, friends, and neighbors. All the physical stuff – that’s what we wrap. I wonder about the most physical manifestation of God with us, Emmanuel. “Wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger”. Most precious of gifts. So precious, in fact, that his parents move many miles to keep him safe and yes, hidden. Herod’s raging psychosis is a threat to the Christ-child. We should all be eager to open and unwrap the best present ever. Once opened, we should not cease finding ways to share it (him). The hidden, mysterious secrets of faith are pondered in the cubbies of our souls, for what – safe keeping? Baptized members only? We spend vast amounts of time trying to answer the “what does this mean?” At times it does seem exhausting. We get impatient that the fruits of evangelism are not readily seen. Did we say it the right way, the fail-safe invitation to worship and experience the love of Christ? Guilt washes over us when we think we have failed, have squandered the sacred offering of God as human.

Even when (if?) we get to a point of preparations being done and everything checked off the list, the time of adoring the lowly infant in the cradle stall is never “done”. A divine love so amazing reaches out in unconditional welcome. That’s a wrap!

Pastor Art