The Value of The Gift

Have you ever taken part in a ‘Secret Santa’ at work or amongst a group of friends or family? It is where you give a present to someone else in the group, usually up to a fixed amount. Now, imagine you have gone to a lot of time and effort to choose a gift with great care and decided to go well above the amount suggested. You have wrapped it beautifully with expensive wrapping paper and even put on it a hand-made label.

When it’s your turn to receive your ‘Secret Santa’ present, you find its poorly wrapped up in old newspaper and contains a rather battered toy. You might feel badly let down. You might feel that it’s a poor exchange. You might even believe it was done as a joke, or that the person didn’t care about you at all.

Imagine that hours, days, or weeks later you discover that the person who gave you your gift had given you the very best that they had. Something unbelievably precious to them that they didn’t want to let go of that they had had forever, but knew they had to. Would that affect how you viewed the original gift? Would it make you not only think differently about the person giving it, but also enable you to truly value the gift as being unbelievably precious?

Maybe this will help us all to rethink the gift of Jesus to us. He was given quietly, with very few even aware of His birth. The only room available for him was a stable, and the only bed a manger (animal feeding trough). At the end of His life, despite showing love for all and doing many miracles of healing and deliverance, He was nailed to a cross and mocked at by the people passing by – despised and rejected by men and women. ‘Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads’ (Luke 27:39).

This gift was not appreciated, perhaps even by you, dear reader, for many years of your life.

Yet, the one who gave this precious gift was none other than God Almighty. He chose to give us the most precious gift in the whole universe, His One and only Son, Jesus. Knowing the value that is placed on the gift changes our perception of that gift completely.

It (He) now becomes of infinite value to us, to the extent that we choose to give our lives to Him. It’s not a fair exchange, but one that the Father values above all else. This Christmas let us look anew with wonder at not only the gift of Jesus, but the value of Him, the incredible value the Giver placed on this gift, and the enormous cost it took to give Him to you and to me.