Well, here we are – in the final count-down. Do I really need to remind you Christmas is only a week away? My question for today could be a very simple one: have you finished all of your Christmas shopping? Or do you still have to rush out today to find that last-minute present for your favorite uncle or, worse yet, for your spouse? Or will you put it all off until next Friday, because you really enjoy the challenge of shopping on Christmas Eve?
Yes, these are questions I could ask you today, the Fourth (and last) Sunday of Advent. But I have a somewhat more important question for you: one you certainly do not need to answer out loud. My question is this: Why do you buy presents in the first place? What is it that prompts you to give a gift to someone else?
Do you give a gift to someone because you owe them something? Do you buy a present for someone merely because they expect it? When you make out your list of those who will receive Christmas presents this year, do you think about the people at work, the teacher at school, the person who delivers your mail, and the one who tosses your morning paper on the driveway, usually on the spot covered by water from the lawn sprinkler. Do you give gifts only to those who merit some reward from you, because of the jobs they do for you? Do you give with an expectation that if you don’t give them a Christmas bonus, maybe they won’t work quite as hard for you next year?
Is this, also, why you give gifts to friends and relatives? Because of what they have done for you, how well they have treated you? Are you a little concerned that if you don’t give them something, they won’t like you quite as much? Or do you give them a gift because you love them, and you want them to know just how much you love them? And if that’s the reason, does a bigger and more expensive gift mean you love them more than a smaller gift might represent? Does the size or cost of the gift stand in for the size of your love for one another?
Well, if you’ve had any of these thoughts, you share them with a lot of other people – including someone we heard about in our first reading for today, a reading taken from the Second Book of Samuel. Some three-thousand years ago, King David had similar thoughts. We heard how he was “… settled in his palace and the Lord God had given him rest from his enemies on every side.” It was then that King David decided he should do something nice for the Lord God. As he said “ … here I am living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God dwells in a tent!”
Now at first glance, you might say: ok, David saw how much he owed to God, and he was just paying him back. If God is generous, should I not be generous back to God? Isn’t this what I’m told God wants? Am I not supposed to give back to God a tenth of all I have? And when David told the local holy man, Nathan the prophet, about his planned gift-giving, Nathan answered: “Go, do whatever you have in mind, for the Lord is with you.”
But it turns out, even a prophet can be wrong from time to time, if he fails to check it out first with the Lord God. For that very night, the Lord God spoke to Nathan and told him to remind David it was he, the Lord God, who had accomplished everything David thought he had done on his own. And everything that would be done in the future by David or his offspring would be the result of God’s love for his people.
Once more, God reminded David that God gives without a requirement he be paid back. A gift from God is given merely because God loves us and not because we merit that gift. When God gives a gift, the only expectation is we rejoice in gratitude for the gift. And how do we rejoice? By sharing that gift with others. By sharing God’s love with others.
We heard this message even more powerfully in our gospel reading for this Fourth Sunday of Advent. Once again, we heard the story of the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she has been chosen to receive the greatest gift God could ever give: the gift of himself. In his announcement, Gabriel began by saying those words we prayerfully repeat to this day: “Hail, (Mary) full of grace! The Lord is with you.” And what was Mary’s response? Luke says: “… but she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.” However, the angel reassured her and then told her of the gift she was about to receive. And when she heard this, what was her final response? “May it be done to me according to your word.”
Mary, as we are constantly reminded, heard the word of God and said, “yes.” But what we sometimes fail to appreciate is exactly what she said “yes” to. Mary said “yes” to her complete and total acceptance of the gift God offered to her and, through her, to us. She accepted and embraced God’s gift – with the recognition she had not merited it by anything she, herself, had done, but merely because she was full of grace – God’s first gift to her. Without further questions, she accepted and shared God’s gifts. But sometimes God’s gifts are hard to accept and to share.
Although it’s easy to accept God’s gifts of life and health, we question his gifts of pain and suffering. We find it easy to rejoice in our family and friends, in our children and in our spouse when they please us, when they do what we think is good and right. But we find it difficult to accept, let alone rejoice in them, when they fail to live up to our expectations. Perhaps this is a result of how we view our own gift-giving and gift-receiving.
Have you ever given a gift someone does not like? Have you ever received a gift that makes you say to yourself: “why in the world did Uncle Bob ever give me this?! What possible use can be made of this so-called gift? It’s the wrong size and color. Using it would bring me a lot of pain and discomfort.”
Yet even when a gift is received with puzzlement, does that make the gift-giver into a cruel or unthinking person? No, not if we appreciate a true gift is given because of the love the giver has for the one who receives it. What loving person gives a gift in order to be cruel? After all, does a parent give a child a scorpion or a stone to eat?
When a gift is received with puzzlement, it suggests the gift needs to be received with continued faith and trust in the love of the giver. There must be faith and trust that, although I am uncertain right now why I am receiving it, I know, in the long run, this gift will be exactly what I need. I know the gift-giver, indeed, knows me and my circumstances better than I, myself, may know them. We need to remember that even God’s gift to Mary contained a puzzlement. His joyful gift to her was not free from pain and suffering. The rejoicing of Christmas contains within it the pain of Good Friday. Both the crib and the cross are made of the wood of salvation.
In a few days we will once again celebrate the gift of the Christ Child given to Mary and to us. In his name, we will give and receive other gifts because of the love we share for him and for one another. Although this is the season of hope and of joy for many of us, for some, it is a season of despair and of unhappiness. Yet in every season, we need to remember that everything we have is a gift from God and our response should be to rejoice in these gifts, even the ones which bring us the most puzzlement. We need to remember that God gives me a gift for only one reason. God gives me a gift because he loves me. In return for all gifts given, and those about to be received, it is right for me to give him thanks and praise; it is right for me to rejoice.
Fourth Sunday of Advent; December 19, 1999
2 Sam 7:1-5, 8-11, 16; Rom 16:25-27; Lk 1:26-38