Receive the gift of God's love

Centuries before the birth of Jesus a man named Isaiah said it would happen. He wrote this, quoted from the biblical text in a well-known part of Handel's Messiah.

“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace ...” 

Jump to the contemporary period of Jesus' birth. The gospel of John says, “He came to His own (own creation), and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name ...” 

I reflected on the word “receive” this morning. I thought of it as “to make my own” — or “to take in.” In the post office last week a short grandmotherly woman came through the door with her arms stretched around a box nearly as big as she. She plopped it on the counter and stood next to me in line. My curiosity piqued; I wondered what could be in that large square box. 

I was astonished to learn it was mostly filled with homemade cookies and candies. This woman had been baking for three days. There was — among other things — fudge, and mounds and toffee bars, and Ovaltine cookies, and her grandmother's gingerbread cookies. All for her daughter and family in North Carolina — clear across the country. The postmaster told her as I was leaving that mailing it “won't be cheap.” 

I can't tell you how I wanted to walk out of there with that box. But it wasn't meant for me. I'd have had to steal it, and taking is not receiving. I could imagine the daughter who would receive it — the excitement, the oohs and ahhs, as each offering was discovered. And the joy she would feel in her mother having taken the time and care and expense to prepare and pack that box of Christmas love.  

There was no way she was going to refuse the delivery when it appeared on her doorstep — and she saw who it was from. The arrival of Jesus into the world was not the delivery of a box of cookies! But this act of receiving with joy a gift from the sender — a trustworthy God who loves His creation — is what Christmas is. It is taking in that gift, making His life mine. 

Those incomparable names — Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace — are meant for me to receive and partake. I don't have to steal them. They are sent to the world willingly — and yes, at great cost, when I follow the life journey of Jesus.  

In just a couple of weeks I'll be remembering His birth on the doorstep of an innkeeper in Bethlehem of Judea — always timely because I am not celebrating a dead person. I am a child of the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Eternal Father, the Prince of Peace. He came to His own — and I received Him.