Author’s Note: This is the third installment of our four-week Advent series. Biblical scholarship disagrees with the timing of Christmas and Jesus’ birth. That said, we’ll still take a four-week journey together to examine the meaning of the First and Second Advent in our lives. If you missed our first and second installments, please look them up on the Springtown Seventh-day Adventist Church Facebook page.
The Yeagley boys never bought into the whole Santa thing. We loved “Jingle Bells” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” but I don’t remember leaving cookies on a plate for Santa on Christmas Eve.
So Santa wasn’t a big deal, but we lived with eager anticipation for the arrival of the Sears Christmas Wish Book. If you lived under a rock or are too young to know about this national treasure — let me fill you in. Sears used to be a big deal in the United States. But even more important, the Christmas Wish Book was IT for any breathing, right-minded American boy and girl of the day.
After wading through clothes, shoes, and the dreadful women’s foundation pages — you arrived at the toy section. Dolls, games, bikes, puzzles, baseball gear, ice skates, and stuff that the Yeagley boys only dreamed about. But dream, we did! We’d fight over whose turn it was to pore through the near-sacred catalog pages.
One Christmas, my parents told us things would be different that year. The Wish Book would still arrive in the mailbox, but we were going to exchange homemade gifts. That meant every present I received would not be in the pages of the Sears Christmas Wish Book. Initially, that was a tough pill to swallow. Things were about to change, though.
Some 55 years later, I still remember the excitement of working with my mother and father as we made presents. My dad and I would sneak down to the basement to build a wooden boat for one of my brothers. The unfinished project was hidden carefully between work sessions. With four boys, my parents invested considerable time secretly helping us make presents. We were learning valuable lessons. They were spending precious time with us.
Was Christmas different that year? Yes. As my brothers opened the presents I made, I got the biggest blessing. Some of the presents my younger siblings made weren’t in the Sears Wish Book, but each gift came wrapped with their love and eager anticipation.
No doubt, my parent’s pastoral family budget was blessed that year. But four young boys were gifted with the joy of pouring themselves into blessing others.
There is another Family of Three that decided to give a personal, homemade Gift to their children. The Bible hints at their Gift plans. “It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him as your ransom long before the world began . . .” 1 Peter 1:19-20a NLT
The Heavenly Trio knew that someday, the Gift would be needed. Tragically, the kids messed up, and the perfectly planned Gift was urgently needed. The roll-out plan was humble. A young girl and a shameful pregnancy. Unwelcome taxes. A smelly barn.
There was one flashy part of the plan. An angel visited some average-Joe shepherds and said, “Don’t be afraid! I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth lying in a manger.” Luke 2;10-12 NLT
The Gift Baby kept giving. Hope. Healing. Life. Truth. Restoration. But the greatest joy in the Gift was that it was handcrafted for everyone on planet Earth. Check it out. “What we do see is Jesus, who for a little while was given a position ‘a little lower than the angels’; and because he suffered death for us, he is now “crowned with glory and honor,’ Yes by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone.” Hebrews 2:9 NLT
There were always one or two spectacular gifts in the Sears catalog that were just too expensive to imagine finding under our Christmas tree. Here’s the Good News. The most expensive, extravagant Gift in human history is free! Handcrafted just for you.