"Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith."

 

         The season of Advent is a time for receiving the Good News of salvation in Christ. In the messages of this season we have been looking at those who surrounded Jesus in the manger: shepherds, Mary, and Joseph. Today our focus is on Jesus, on the gift of God to us.

         The focus on the gift of God most likely requires us to reorient our thinking. What I mean is that today I came to church in the "giving" mode. I have been in that mode all month, and it is wearing me out. We have been bringing this and that to every dinner and party of the season, also trying to provide for a variety of people who are in need at Christmas, and considering year-end financial gifts to the church and denomination and various missions.

         The wearing-out part comes to me when I find myself standing, bewildered, in the middle of a shopping mall, a place I avoid at all costs the other 11 months of the year, wondering what might be appropriate for me to give my soon-to-be-90- year-old mother for Christmas, and asking myself if I really just bought that for my wife, and then my Alaskan son says he wants a waterproof backpack and I wonder if it can be true that they have no plastic garbage bags in the North Country.

         All of which is to say that I am consumed by all this giving, and weary of it, and also quite committed to it.

         How is it then possible that I might have ears to hear the Gospel today? Can I truly listen to a word about the gift of God?

         I must begin with the wonderful devotional written by the Pointer family in our Advent book for Thursday, December 6. As I read, I can hear them discussing this around the kitchen table:

         "Christmas is a season to celebrate our alleged generosity. Everyone gives at Christmas time, even the Ebenezer Scrooges. In fact, it may be true that Charles Dickens' story of Scrooge's transformation has done more to form our notion of Christmas than Luke's story of the manger. Whereas Luke tells us of God's gift to us, Dickens tells us how we can give to others. 'A Christmas Carol' is more congenial to our favorite images of ourselves, but the real Christmas story – the one according to Luke – is not about how blessed it is to be givers but about how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers."

         So, the Angels come, in Luke to the shepherds and in Matthew to Joseph, and they bring a message. It is an announcement that places the focus on the baby, the gift of God: "Here, this is for you."

         To Joseph: ". . . he will save his people from their sins."

         To the shepherds ". . . today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord."

         Notice that in both Gospels the angels say nothing about what the hearers must do, or change or believe or say, other than to tell Joseph to not be afraid to take Mary as his wife.

         Here is an announcement, a message, a Gospel given to people who are dying, who are caught in sin, who are at the end of their strength, who are oppressed by their own humanity and the cruelty of the powerful.

         "Here. A gift for you. A Savior has been born. He will save you from your sins."

         It is helpful to look at the responses of the shepherds, and of Mary and of Joseph, but the Gospel announcement of the angels brings our focus to Jesus. Jesus is the one who saves people from their sins.

         Paul Achtemeier writes, "Jesus is the solution to the sinful mess into which humanity, including the chosen people, has gotten themselves."

         What this says to me today, the obedient and somewhat compulsive Christmas giver, is "Do not rush too quickly past this gift. Do not be in a hurry to get to the next step, to ask what it is you must do now, to wonder just how this Savior will help you be a better giver."

         Let the gift be a gift to you.

         Paul seems in many ways to fit the mold of the classic giver. He was an activist, a missionary, a doer of the Word, a goer to the cities of the ancient world, an evangelist and pastor. But we need to pay careful attention to his language in Romans chapter1 as he describes who he is in Christ. At the very core of his life we find one who received the gift of God; we find a person who knew about grace.

         "Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship."

         Paul's life and ministry centered on what he received from God.

         First, he says, from Christ Jesus the Lord, he received grace. It was the zeal and learning of Paul that led him to become a persecutor of Jesus Christ the Son of God and to become a violent man. But by the grace of God in Christ he received forgiveness of sin and inclusion into the church.

         I believe it is most often some mixture of our strength and our brokenness that leads us into a problematic life, a trap built by sin, and we cannot get out.

We come to Jesus "just as I am." We come trapped in a problematic life.

         Jesus is the one who saves you.

         He saves you by leading you. He shows you the way out.

         He saves you by redeeming you. He dies to take away that sin.

         He saves you by his resurrection from the dead, so that your salvation will be completed in his kingdom.

         The salvation that is a gift of God in Christ brings with it assurance, confidence. The gift is one we need.

         Then, Paul says, from Christ Jesus the Lord, he received apostleship. This also is a gift. You see, when he received the grace of Christ into his life, it saved him from his sin, but it also nullified his role, his life as a Pharisee. The gift cost him his standing, his position, his life work. Grace brought him to a place of having nothing to do. So the call to apostleship came also as a gift from God. It was not penance to travel the world preaching to Gentiles. It was not his duty to now use his talents since he had been forgiven much; it was a gift. Through Christ, he received a call that gave him a future. He did not receive a job from God, he received a life. He was included in the Kingdom and its work on earth.

         My mother once told me that in our family tree there is a man who was the silversmith to the King of Norway. Sometimes I think about that, what it must have been like. It sounds to me like more than a job. It sounds like being part of something that is glorious. The silversmith to the King.

         I like to think of my life in that way. I have been given a calling, a craft to carry out in service of the King. Paul gives thanks for the gift of grace and apostleship he received from Christ. He was included in something glorious and eternal.

         I wonder if we are sometimes in danger of settling for what the world demands of us, and so we leave the gift of God too soon, we step over it on the way to trying to meet the standards of the world, always the giver in our own strength, always carrying the weight of our sin.

         The angel says,

                           "Here! A Gift for you.

A Savior is born.

Stop.

Receive the grace of God."

         Amen.