It’s a tradition in some households.
Quietly and unobserved, members of the house go looking to find where the
Christmas gifts have been hidden. When (not if) they find the stash of
presents, they go to great lengths to figure out what’s what and which presents
are for which people. One man recounted a Christmas years ago when he and his
brother, both musicians in the high school band, exchanged gifts. One brother
said before opening, “Oh, this must be a new mute for my trumpet.” It was. The
other brother said, also before opening, “Oh, this must be the new music stand
I need.” It was. Another year, they each gave the other the same Beatles Abbey
Road LP, which they both knew about ahead of time.
Gift giving is an honored Christmas
tradition. Today I want us to look at some very important gifts given before
the first Christmas.
Luke’s
list of gifts
Matthew and Luke both include
accounts of Jesus’ birth. Matthew’s account in the first two chapters gives us
Jesus’ genealogy, it tells of the birth, the visit of the Magi, the family’s
flight to Egypt and their return to Nazareth. Matthew shows, at various places,
how these things fulfilled prophecies given by Jeremiah and others.
Luke has more details and provides
more of “the rest of the story” leading up to the first Christmas than Matthew.
One way to look at Luke’s account is to see the “gifts” given and received
leading up to Jesus’ birth.
God’s
gift to Zechariah and Elizabeth
The first gift Luke tells us about
seems, at first look, unrelated to Jesus. But, as we shall see, it is indeed
part of Jesus’ story well beyond the first Christmas. After his introduction,
Luke tells about a priest named Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth. Luke’s
description of them says, “Both of them were righteous before God, living
blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But
they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in
years.”1
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