When people give Christmas gifts to each other, they usually think a great deal about it beforehand. A gift tells us quite a bit about the giver, doesn't it? You can estimate, more or less, what people think of you by the gifts they give you. On the other hand, we can all probably remember Christmases from childhood when we sometimes failed to fully appreciate what we had been given.
It seems to me that presenting gifts to one another is a very right and very good thing for us to do. I believe that in doing so, humanity is unconsciously helping to underscore the greatest and most important thing for us to realize about this day.
At Christmas, we must never forget that God the Father is the giver. Of course, it is natural and right that we should think about the child in Bethlehem, our blessed Lord, lying as a helpless baby in a manger. But let's never forget this: God is the giver. It was the Father who sent His Son into the world. It was the Father's purpose. It is God who "so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son . . ." (John 3:16). It is God who "sent forth His son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law . . ." (Galatians 4:4).
There is no greater insult to a giver than when someone is more interested in the gift than in the giver. Let's never forget, therefore, that the Son of God was sent by the Father and that He was sent to bring us to the Father, the great and eternal Giver.
