{"id":3678,"date":"2007-12-25T00:20:22","date_gmt":"2007-12-25T05:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2007\/12\/25\/christmas-words-gifts\/"},"modified":"2007-12-25T00:20:22","modified_gmt":"2007-12-25T05:20:22","slug":"christmas-words-gifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/12\/25\/christmas-words-gifts\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Words: Gifts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cOn coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts<\/em> of gold and of incense and of myrrh\u201d (Matthew 2:10-11). Christmas, the original one, had gifts.
\nSome are torn about giving gifts at Christmas because they protest consumerism.
\nSome are torn about giving gifts because they are unemployed.
\nSome are torn about giving gifts at Christmas because so many are poor.
\nBut giving gifts transcends a Dickens kind of Christmas. Giving gifts, regardless of whether or not we can offer the royal gifts of gold and incense and myrrh, are natural to Christmas because God \u201cgave\u201d his Son to us at Christmas. Christmas is gift and our gifts mirror God\u2019s gifts to us.
\nPerhaps we should see all of our gifts as \u201cregifting.\u201d
\nWe give worship to God at Christmas as regifting what God has given to us.
\nWe give gifts to others as regifting what God has given to us.
\nWe regift to God, not because we are cheap but because all we have to offer to God is what he has given to us: our possessions, our money, our lives, our very selves. Even our worship is participation in the perichoretic worship of the Father, Son, and Spirit.
\nI don\u2019t mean to sound cute with this idea that Christmas is about gifts and regifting. I mean only to say that all we have has been given to us and at Christmas all genuine gifts are participations in what God has given to us. We pass it on.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOn coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh\u201d (Matthew 2:10-11). Christmas, the original one, had gifts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1749],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent"],"yoast_head":"\nChristmas Words: Gifts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. 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