Pastor Bob with his 2 children, Tanner and Julia

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A few years ago, I was shopping for the perfect gift for my youngest child. What she wanted was a Tickle-Me-Elmo, which was the "hot" gift for that holiday season. I lined up outside of an area Wal-Mart at 4 o‟clock in the morning, waiting for the doors to open. When they finally did, I felt like I had entered a demolition derby- shoppers crashed their carts into one another in a frenzied attempt to get a Tickle-Me-Elmo. By the time I reached the shelves, they were empty.

Every Christmas, Christians are asked to ponder a different kind of perfect gift, the small, quiet, intimate gift of love in the birth of a child. I read an article that talked about the ancient Greeks, and how they believed that God was perfect. By that they meant that God doesn‟t need anything, God is isolated, unchanging, unfeeling. If God had feelings, became angry or happy, hated or loved, God would be as vulnerable as any human being, which was a preposterous idea to them.

Then came a new idea, that God loves, that God is love, love with all the risk and vulnerability and heartbreak that go along with love. The basic Christian assertion is the opposite of the Greek idea: God is God only in relationship. God cares so deeply, loves so passionately, that it hurts. Twenty centuries ago, John wrote to the church in Asia Minor, "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God…God is love and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them."

The perfect gift is the gift that causes us to love- perhaps against our will or better judgment, against our normally cautious reserve that warns us to be careful, not to care too much, not to risk being hurt. This is what Christmas is: God coming to the world in humble and vulnerable love, God coming to the world in the birth of a child. This Christmas season, instead of just spending all of our hard-earned cash extravagantly in pursuit of the perfect gift, let us spend ourselves extravagantly in the perfect gift of love. God abides in love in each one of us, and asks us to do the same.

Merry Christmas and many blessings,

Pastor Bob