The Great Gift Exchange

            Every December at the church where I serve we have a Christmas gift exchange party. I have heard these referred to by different names, one of the most common is a “White Elephant Gift Exchange”. The way the game goes is that you bring a wrapped gift and then everyone draws a number and you get to either select an unopened gift and see what’s in it, or you can “steal” a gift that someone before you has already opened. Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes someone else takes what you want and you get the leftovers.

            The week after Christmas retail stores, both online and brick and mortar stores will be overrun with exchanges. Gifts will have given, opened, and then taken back to be exchanged for something else.

            That’s part of the Christmas season.

            Interestingly enough, our Christian life is much like this. And what better time than this Christmas season to make an exchange?

            Read this passage from Isaiah and then you’ll see how it works:

“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,
   and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes, the oil of joy, instead of mourning, and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.”

--Isaiah 61:1b-3a

            Exchange your ashes for beauty. Cash in your mourning for joy. Take your despair to the return desk and walk away with praise.

            Did you catch all of that?

            Your ashes, your mourning, your despair need to be placed in the exchange bin. You’ve carried these things around long enough. It’s time to give them back. These are the gifts you’ve been given, perhaps, but you don’t have to keep them. The Christmas gift exchange has begun!

            Jesus has some new gifts for you: Beauty, Joy, and Praise.

            That sounds a whole lot better than what you’ve got now doesn’t it? But here’s how this works, you can’t hang on to old gifts and get the new ones. You have to give the old ones up first. You have to give up the despair, the mourning, the ashes of this temporal life. That sounds like something that we all want to do, but deep down you know that it really isn’t that easy, right?

            I agree with you. It’s not easy. But it is simple. It is the way that God has created us to live in this life. We are burdened down with things that are just part of this earthly existence, but not part of who we are.

            Everyone has experienced pain, hurt, and disappointment. That’s why we have the ashes, despair, and mourning. But today you can trade those things in. You can give up the ashes of the past for the beauty of eternity. You can exchange the mourning of loss and death for the true joy that a relationship with Christ Jesus brings to life. You can let go of the despair of regret and put on new clothes of constant praise.

            The past is over. But your future is awaiting.

            Welcome to God’s Gift Exchange. It’s your turn.