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A Box Full of Love
“While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.
And she gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in bands of cloth,
and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”
-Luke 2:6-7
A four-year-old girl asked her mother, “Mommy, what is Christmas?” Her mother explained that Christmas is Jesus’ birthday!” “Then why don’t we give gifts to Jesus if it’s his birthday?” the girl asked. The mother explained the tradition of exchanging Christmas gifts as expressions of our love for one another.
On Christmas Eve the little girl placed a package under the Christmas tree before she went to bed. She explained that it was a birthday gift for Jesus, and that she was sure he would open it while she slept.
After she was asleep, the mother, not wanting her daughter to be disappointed, opened the clumsily wrapped package and found the box empty.
On Christmas morning, the little girl was thrilled to find the package had been opened and her gift was gone. Her mother asked, “What was in it?”
“It was a box full of love,” the girl replied.
No greater gift of love was ever given then the great gift God gave when he sent his son to be born of Mary on that first Christmas two millennia ago. That little baby lying in a manger was a gift of love for the entire world to feast on and enjoy.
In a recent article they wrote for the Sojourners Magazine, John and Samuel Munayer offer these thought provoking reflections of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem: “Luke tells us that Mary ‘gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger’ (2:7). A manger is a feeding trough for animals, a place where food is laid down. The prophet Isaiah, writes that ‘the ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s manger’ (1:3). Luke’s account insists that there was no room in the inn (Katáluma or guest room), no proper place for the child to be born.
“Later in Luke’s gospel, as Jesus prepares to face the cross, he tells his disciples to look for the upper room where they, as guests will eat the Passover (22:11-12). The same Greek word for guest lodging (Katáluma) links the beginning and the end of Jesus’ earthly life. Luke wants us to make the connection between Incarnation and crucifixion, between the child laid where food belongs and the One who will give himself as bread and wine.”
“Mary is, in this sense, a prophet. By laying Christ in a manger, she is already declaring who he will become: food for the hungry, bread for the life of the world. On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus takes bread and says, ‘This is my body, given for you.’ But Mary’s actions in Bethlehem are the first proclamation of this truth. She offers Christ to a starving world, laying him in a place meant for food. The infant swaddled in cloth is already the bread of life for all who hunger for justice…”
“We celebrate Christmas truthfully when we join in Mary’s proleptic act. We celebrate Christmas when we participate in feeding the hungry, comforting the broken hearted, raising up the oppressed.”
“To receive the Christ Child is to share in who he becomes, to share his mission. We humbly enter the stable when we break the bread of life in places of despair, embody solidarity with the wounded, live in such a way that hope is not extinguished.”
That’s the message of the incarnation in a nutshell. God entered into our world in order to enter into our lives. He came to share what we are, to give meaning to what we do, to heal wounds, to create a community of love where there had previously only been alienation and brokenness. What can compare with a gift like that? When God came down to earth as a baby born on an out of the way hamlet called Bethlehem, God showed the world, in a way it never would have expected, that nothing can ever separate us from God’s inclusive and welcoming love.
 A Blessed Advent to All,
Pastor Greg Kintzi
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