Birthday Gifts

Each Christmas I attend Your birthday party.

But it wasn’t until this dark morning, at the end of the year’s longest night, that I realized the gifts are always for me.

Each present is chosen with divine care and wrapped according to its contents. That small one over there, sitting atop the pile? It seems a bit out of place, with its plain brown wrapper and a burlap bow. When I start to open it, I get a paper cut and the tiny laceration sends a shock of pain through my entire hand. When I lift the box’s lid I understand.

Memories of childhood Christmases pour out: Mama in the kitchen, baking fruitcake cookies, swiveling between table and stove in her tiny kitchen. Daddy taking a break from tree decorating to whisper a description of his gift for Mama. My sister and I offering our annual Christmas Eve show, a gift of words and music to celebrate our parents’ anniversary.

The pain from my cut intensifies, then disappears as I feel Your strong Arm around me. You lean in and remind me that all is well with my parents, and we’ll celebrate together again one day.

That one in the red and green foil paper, with the flashy silver bow? I have a feeling this is my out-of-the-blue gift this year, the one I never see coming. When I unwrap it, I hear the laughter and singing of a Christmas party we attended recently. We knew only the hosts, and even that was a new relationship. But by the end of the evening, all had shared the bitter and the sweet of our respective Christmas seasons. I think I saw You there, smiling in the corner. (Especially when we muddled through “Feliz Navidad.”)

Oh, I know what this huge one is, leaning on its side in the corner. When I remove the last of the snowflake paper, I find a steamer trunk, dinged by its travels with me. When I lift the heavy lid I see other gifts, each wrapped perfectly. There are too many for me to open at one time, so I select a few.

This one smells like pine trees and sugar cookies and sounds like the ocean. My heart fills with the gift of my family. I am not worthy of such sweetness, yet You continue to give it, Christmas after Christmas.

A small gift, like a ring box, is wrapped in pearlescent white paper. It could get lost easily amid all the others. I know what it is, but I open it anyway

Inside are two toothpick-sized pieces of wood. One is from Your cradle—a feeding trough, to be accurate. It marks the beginning of Your earthly journey, the first step in the Father’s rescue plan. I handle it gently, tenderly, as one would a newborn child. I want to linger with it and drink in the vanilla scent of your baby skin.

But I can’t. I pick up the other splintery sliver and a chill rushes through my bones. It is a piece of Your cross, the instrument of Your execution. You, in Your perfect Wholeness, took on my brokenness and the punishment associated with it. I couldn’t save myself, so You did it for me.

Although I have never experienced a scintilla of the physical pain you endured, it is the spiritual torment that is a great and terrible mystery to me. To be severed from the Father as He turned His Back on my sin, to lose the relationship that had existed from before time—Jesus, I can’t begin to grasp it.

Finally, I remove the tissue from a tiny gift bag and see a perfect pearl. When I pick it up it dissolves in my hand, sending light flowing through my body. Your Light, Jesus, the Light of Your Love and Compassion, washing over me in ways I cannot understand. I yield the limits of my human mind and heart to You; I accept that I cannot know what I cannot know.

All I can say is, “Thank You.” All I can offer is myself.

Happy birthday, Jesus.

Psalm 30:11-12, The Message

You did it: you changed wild lament

into whirling dance;

You ripped off my black mourning band

and decked me with wildflowers.

I’m about to burst with song;

I can’t keep quiet about you.

God, my God,

I can’t thank you enough.