In the movie, The Christmas Box, a woman asks her handyman the question, "What is the first gift of Christmas?" Now, you need to know that these two persons didn't hit it off at all. They didn't even like each other. When she asked a question, she was usually trying to teach him something – generally, something he didn’t want to especially know. "What is the first gift of Christmas?" she asks him. He answers: "A tie." The woman looks sternly at him, and insists he be serious, so he tries again, more earnestly: He says, "The first gift of Christmas is love." She tells him that that is a good beginning, but only a very small part of the answer and that he should take time to think it through. And, in fact, the experiences and dreams he has that lead him to the correct answer, is what the book is about. Finally, thanks to the wisdom of his own child and some close brushes with angels, he gets it: "The first gift of Christmas is a child."

So what's new about that? Everyone knows that Christmas is about children. Isn't that why we buy toys? Isn't that why we put up Christmas trees? Isn't that why we build nativity scenes and put the baby at the manger? Don't we always say that Christmas is for children? Isn't that why we spend so much money to make them happy?

But the question is not, "Why do we celebrate Christmas?" or, " To whom does Christmas belong?" The question is: "What is the first gift of Christmas?"

Sometimes we give a theological response to that question: "Christmas is about the newborn Messiah, about God coming to us in Jesus, about the One who will be known as `Wonderful Counselor,' `Mighty God,' `Eternal Father,' `Prince of Peace.'" We quote from Isaiah, "His royal power will continue to grow; his kingdom will always be at peace. He will rule as King David's successor, basing his power on righteousness and justice." And all that is true - God in Christ has become our Emmanuel, God with us. But when all the theologizing is done, when all the philosophizing and romanticizing of the season is done, we must admit that the first gift of Christmas is a child -- a real, human child.

Luke says: "Mary gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them to stay in the inn." Luke 2:7

Gifts are given with the hope that they will be well received and accepted. Gifts are given with the hope that they will be found useful. Gifts are given with that hope that they may be enjoyed. The child Jesus was given to us, and to all of creation, as the first gift of Christmas. However, no one was ready to receive the gift.

Mary and Joseph did not have a place for the birthing of their child, neither did they have clothes for him. They probably reasoned that a relative in Bethlehem would receive them, or that they might find room at the Bethlehem Inn. But none of the family would receive them – perhaps because of the scandal they had caused, because Mary was pregnant out of wedlock. The Inn Keeper would not give them a room. The decree ordering everyone to go to the place of their family’s origin meant there would not be enough rooms for everyone, so he was, no doubt, being a good entrepreneur, saving his rooms for better paying customers. There was no room for a poor family like them there. The town of Bethlehem took no mercy on his parents or him – there was little concern for a poor family having a baby. No one would give up their own room for them – they were just more mouths to feed, another unimportant, poor family, and out-of-towners to boot. "Let them fend for themselves." Neither was the nation ready for him – we are told that, when Herod heard about him, he was troubled, and "all of Jerusalem with him." The political situation was not friendly to them. There was no room for Joseph and Mary, or for their child.

The first challenge of Christmas is this - to receive the gift of God in the flesh - to receive him as a real child. God always comes to us incarnate, enfleshed in a real live human being. It may be the person at the checkout counter at the grocery store, or the driver in front of us at the stop light, or perhaps that noisy child in the back of the church – perhaps even our spouse. God comes to us, as Luther said, while we are at work, or doing the laundry, or changing the diapers. He comes in the every day events of life, in the people that we meet every day. The first challenge of Christmas is to see him there. To receive the real, flesh and blood Christ, through those whom we meet every day: that we be ready to meet him in the flesh, and not despise him when we meet him.

The second challenge of Christmas is to be ready to receive him, whenever he does come. The angel's first words to the shepherds came to the shepherds, who we are told were out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks in the night. The angels surprised them with the news, "Don't be afraid! I bring you good news, which will bring great joy to all the people." The gift of Christmas is a child who comes whether we are ready or not for him. God does not wait for us to be ready – or he could never send his greatest gift to us. I remember when we had our first-born. I was getting ready to go into seminary. We had no money. We wondered, from month to month, how we were going to pay the rent and keep a roof over our heads. Luke didn’t seem to care about that – he came anyway. Just so, God sends his greatest gifts to us, not when we are ready, but when they are needed – when he determines that it is the right time. When Jesus came into the world, the world was not ready to receive him, but that didn’t matter to God. What mattered was that the world needed him, and so God gave him to the world, to save and redeem the world, to be a gift of his mercy and grace and love.

The third challenge of Christmas is to experience its hope. When the shepherds found Jesus, all they saw was a baby of a poor man and woman, lying in a manger, surrounded by sweaty animals, flies, and the stench of the barn. Yet they believed, and were filled with hope; and so, Luke says, "they returned glorifying God for what they had seen and heard."

A pastor tells about a time when he was preparing his sermon. His little daughter came in and said, "Daddy, can we play?"

He answered, "I'm awfully sorry, Sweetheart, but I'm right in the middle of preparing this sermon. In about an hour I can play."

She said, "Okay, when you're finished, Daddy, I am going to give you a great big hug."

He said, "Thank you very much." She went to the door and (these are his words) "Then she did a U-turn and came back and gave me a chiropractic, bone-breaking hug." Her dad said to her, "Darling, you said you were going to give me a hug after I finished."

She answered, "Daddy, I just wanted you to know what you have to look forward to!"

One meaning of Christmas is that God wants us to know, through this First Coming, how much we have to look forward to. The God we meet in Christ as the Babe of Bethlehem, is none other than the one who is waiting to receive us to himself, and the very same one who will come again for us. That is the hope of Christmas, and the hope in which we live as God’s people.

May you meet the three challenges of Christmas: to meet him in the flesh, to be ready for his presence, and to live every day in its hope.