There’s something very special… 

about brightly coloured and carefully wrapped presents…

neatly placed beneath a decorated Christmas tree.

They symbolise…

of course…

a sense of love and being loved…

and a sense of belonging.

But in their colourful and carefully wrapped state, they also symbolise much more than that.

An unwrapped present is a symbol of promise and potential.

Of course, some presents— 

given their unique shape…

and the challenges that they present to the would-be wrapper—

are easily discernible.

But— 

if wrapped fully and properly— 

most are not.

We don’t know what’s in them until we unwrap them.

And, in the moments before we do that—

as we gaze upon their be-ribboned and neatly folded visage—

we imagine the possibilities.

Could it be that book that I have been wanting to read?

Could it be that new coffee machine I have been eyeing off?

Could it be some of my favourite chocolates?

And could there be a gift voucher—

which, of course, would open up another range of beguiling possibilities. 

 

Now, I don’t know about you but…

when I was growing up…

having imaginatively pondered the promise of the pristinely wrapped present…

I would tear off the paper hopefully…

only to discover that it was a new pair of school shoes;

or, something equally practical and necessary but thoroughly boring;

or, worse still—

and this did happen to me more than once—

in the case of gifts from relatives…

discovering that it was something so hideously bad and unsuitable…

that you were left utterly flabbergasted…

and momentary lost for words…

in a potent mix of disillusionment, disappointment, and disbelief…

but conscious that social etiquette required you to say something in the general vicinity of gratitude.

Isn’t it the case that…

sometimes…

the promise and potential of the unwrapped present can be far more powerful than the reality;

when you get what you need—

or what someone else thinks that you need—

rather than what you actually want?

 

At Christmas…

of course…

we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

And, in many ways, the birth of a baby is a bit like an unwrapped present—

it’s so full of promise and potential.

Looking at that newborn child, we don’t know what they will grow up to look like…

or what they will do…

or who they will become.

Maybe, later in life, we’ll read back who they have become into who they were—

finding clues and traces in the infant of the features or personality that we see in the adult.

But, at the moment of birth, they’re a bit of a blank canvas…

or an unwrapped present.

In composing his story of the birth of Jesus…

the author of Luke’s Gospel seemingly omits many of the banal details—

the baby isn’t described at all…

and, despite how it’s translated, we don’t know where it really took place…

or even who was present.

But he also includes a large amount of quite astonishing and…

frankly…

utterly incredulous detail.

Apart from the tale about God engaging in a bit of divine IVF…

the birth is announced to some shepherds by a veritable army of angels…

who proclaim the child to be the saviour of humankind…

and the one who will inaugurate a reign of peace.

But, in a sense, that’s all part of the wrapping.

In that portrayal, he says things that had been said of the emperor Augustus. 

Indeed, Roman historians—

writing only a few decades after Augustus…

and before any of the Gospels were written—

claim that…

before Augustus’ birth… 

both of his parents had dreams suggesting his future greatness;

while his mother is also said to have had a dream that she had been impregnated by the god, Apollo.

Ancient historians also claimed that… 

at the moment of his birth… 

lightning struck the city wall of his hometown—

which was interpreted as a sign from the gods.

Divine portents are also claimed to have accompanied the births of the emperors Tiberius, Galba, and Vespasian;

as they had also, centuries before, with Alexander the Great.

Thus, in framing the birth of Jesus in these terms…

the author is alluding to his promise and potential.

He is situating Jesus within the hopes and expectations of his readers…

and their world.

And, in describing Jesus as the bringer of salvation and peace…

the author is claiming that Jesus will accomplish what Augustus had supposedly already done.

That is the expectation that this birth story in Luke’s Gospel nurtures and anticipates.

 

And yet…

any of the author’s original readers would have had quite a shock if they then read the rest of Luke’s Gospel…

because Jesus spectacularly fails to live up to the expectations created at his birth.

Rather than a powerful king or a mighty military leader…

we get a powerless peasant…

who travels about the countryside preaching to all and sundry…

surrounded by a rag-tag bunch of misfits…

and effecting little real change…

before getting himself arrested and executed for sedition.

Rather than an eminent philosopher… 

a public intellectual… 

or a pillar of the religious community…

we get a spinner of folk stories and home-spun wisdom…

and a butcher of sacred cows…

who challenges the deeply-ingrained customs, traditions, and structures of his social world;

who castigates the religious powers-that-be…

railing against the rich and powerful…

claiming that they can only belong to God’s family if they give to the poor and destitute as if they were family;

and who welcomes, affirms, and offers compassionate support to all of the dregs of society—

the unemployed…

the homeless and rough-sleepers…

the mentally ill…

foreigners…

and those in unseemly and disreputable occupations—

the very people that the respectable tried to avoid…

and simply hoped would go away…

somewhere…

anywhere…

preferably out of sight.

In other words, he advocates the sort of agenda that…

if someone were to do so today…

they would be labelled a “lefty snowflake” or a “libtard”…

and would be thoroughly denounced in the Murdoch media…

especially the so-called Australian…

or Sky News. 

At the same time…

he also didn’t go about promising people an eternity in heaven if they simply “believed” in him—

let alone a belief divorced from serious socio-political engagement… 

and ethical change;

contrary to what much of the Christian tradition has promulgated over the last couple of millennia.

 

There is a serious disconnect between the teaching and public life of the adult Jesus…

in the Gospel of Luke…

and the earlier expectations that were fostered in its story of his birth.

In effect…

Jesus turns out to be the Christmas present that we need—

or that God thinks we need—

not the one that we want.

And, on some level, maybe we know that.

Perhaps that’s why we love the Christmas story so much…

with all of its romantic imagery…

and saccharine-sweet songs.

It’s like a big, unwrapped present—

so full of all the promises and potentials that we desire or imagine.

And the problem is that… 

once we’ve unwrapped it…

and we’ve discovered that it’s not what we hoped for or wanted…

we’re confronted with the difficult choice of what we’re going to do with it.

 

And somehow, I don’t think God keeps receipts!