Articles
The Giving of Gifts
See how distended Christmas has become. Look and you’ll see it growing, like our appetites, like a cancer. How modest is the traditional Christmas season by comparison! It begins on Christmas Day and spans twelve days, from which we get the famous song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” and the Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night. The commercial Christmas season, on the other hand, begins the evening of Thanksgiving and stretches into the after-Christmas sales, finally collapsing under its own weight sometime around New Year’s.
It is obvious that not all gift-giving is holy. Those who killed the two witnesses in Revelation 11 exchanged gifts to celebrate their apparent victory (Rev. 11:10). The Lord warns against giving so as to be seen by others (Matt. 6:1-4), and He discredits gifts given carelessly out of one’s wealth (Mark 12:44).
We must then confront the Christmas shopping season. Shall we accept secular materialism as a substitute for the true joys of the Christmas season, or shall we follow the biblical pattern of gift-giving that centers on the Incarnation and Crucifixion of our Lord? Today we examine two kinds of secular materialism: prodigality and miserliness.
Prodigal giving apes the purposes of true gift-giving: to express our love and to take joy in the people whom we love. It instead gives gifts to keep up appearances and be noticed by men. Its gifts come with strings attached. It indulges the self more than it indulges the recipient. It rejects the modest and thoughtful gifts that come from love and joy, demanding instead bigger and better. Frivolous gifts are a cheap substitute for real relationships, no less cheap for all the money we spend on them.
Sometimes even worldly people recognize corpulence for what it is and reject it. That does not sanctify the rejection. Worldly frugality is still worldliness. We call it “stinginess” or “miserliness.” It too comes from the Adversary, masquerading as “responsibility” or “sustainability” or some other materialistic euphemism for pettiness. Stingy people reject biblical celebration and gift-giving. Such Scrooges don the responsible long face and tut-tut at genuine generosity. They are like Judas, who balked when Mary anointed Jesus with ointment of pure nard (John 12:1-8). Ever two-faced, they complain, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”
Neither prodigality nor miserliness brings any joy. Gluttons and spendthrifts think their excesses will make them happy, but each indulgence only makes them emptier and poorer. Nibblers and pinchpennies think their asceticism will make them noble, but each denial only feeds their worldly pride. Brothers, we must not be like the scribes, and we must not be like Judas. We must be like Jesus, our Lord. We must turn our hearts to the joy of godly generosity.
True generosity is indeed a joy. The Lord tells us as much when He says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). It makes sense then for Paul to talk about cheerful giving in 2 Cor. 9:6-9. Indeed, generosity is the way to everlasting joy. In the Day of Judgment, the King will say to the righteous at His right hand, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me” (Matt. 25:34-36, emphases mine). This judgment scene teaches us that biblical generosity is more than just purchasing material gifts; it is caring for people as they have need.
Some practical points, then: We should give more than the material doodads that wrap up neatly under the tree. We should give of our efforts, our time, and especially our presence with our loved ones. We should also treat our giving as if we were offering our gifts to the Lord Himself, for, “as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me,” and, “thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Matt. 25:40; Heb. 13:2).
We see this no more clearly than in Christ Himself. His Incarnation, His presence among us, was a gift (Phil. 2:5-7). That is to say nothing of His life and crucifixion, during which He freed the sick from their afflictions, the demon-possessed from unclean spirits, and us from our sins. He gave what was needed when it was needed most. Let Christ be our pattern. Let us give gifts as Christ did: freely, generously, out of an abundance of love.
