The Gift


Have you ever been given a gift you didn’t want? It’s happened to me. I’m sure it’s happened to you. What do you do with it? You can’t throw it away. Do you wait an appropriate amount of time and then regift it to someone else? My sister once received what she described as an ugly dinner plate. She had a yard sale and put the plate out for sale, cheap. And guess what happened? The friend who gave her the plate showed up at the yard sale. My sister was mortified, especially when the woman asked how much is that adorable dinner plate? My sister said, “For ten cents, it’s yours.”

Not receiving a gift with graciousness can be very offensive to the giver. In the movies you have those scenes where the intrepid traveler is in a foreign land among aboriginal peoples and the traveler is offered a banquet of roasted insects and worm sushi. He doesn’t want to eat it but knows it would be deeply offensive to the natives of he doesn’t. When you were a kid and Aunt Edna made her awful tuna noodle casserole, you didn’t want to eat but you knew you had to. All eyes were on you. What’s more, you had to say thank you Aunt Edna and sound like you meant it.

We all know about bad gifts. But is there ever a time in our lives when someone wants to give us a good gift and we refuse simply because we do not understand the value of it?

There was a man named Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a ruler, and a teacher of Israel. He was by these standards, the standards of his day and culture, simply one of the best people around. We have every reason to believe that he was a good, honest, and wise man. He certainly was respected by his community. Nicodemus comes to Jesus seeking some understanding. He begins the conversation with:

“Rabbi, we know you are teacher sent by God; no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” John 3.2

Nicodemus was saying, look, anyone in their right mind can see that there is something special about you, that God is with you. Nicodemus is showing that he is a seeker. He wants to understand.

Jesus is good at knowing what people need and getting to the heart of the matter. He says,

“Very truly I tell you no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
John 3.3

Another good way to translate that last part is, “unless he is born from above.” John often uses words with multiple meanings is this is one of those times. Let’s look at “born again” first. Because this is what Nicodemus picks up on. He questions Jesus, what, I must climb back into my mother’s belly? Nicodemus is being facetious. He is learned man and teacher well acquainted to truth expressed in metaphor. But that doesn’t mean he understands what Jesus is saying to him.

“Very truly I tell you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I told you you must be born again.” John 3.5-7

The language of water and flesh and even Spirit have something to do with the forgiveness of the one who believes. If we believe in Christ we will be forgiven. But Jesus is saying much more than this. This language he uses is the language of origin. If you put earth and water and an acorn together you get an oak tree. If you put human flesh together you get a human. But, what if you want the human to be more than flesh that will by its nature, like the sturdy oak, eventually die? You must birth it with something that is spiritual, eternal. It must be birthed from above.

Jesus didn’t come to start a religion in which decent people could strive to be better, or even, that bad people might become good. Jesus came so that dead people could become alive again. Jesus came so that we can have New Life!

In the movie Forrest Gump there is that scene where Forrest and Lieutenant Dan are in a bar near Times Square on New Year’s Eve. And they’re in this bar with a couple girls who are, shall we say, of low repute. But they are there watching the ball drop on television and the one girl dreamily stares at the tv and says, “Don’t you just love New Year’s. It’s a chance to start over. Everyone gets to start over.”

But the problem with that is, yes, the year might be new, but I’m still the same person starting the new year. Nothing about the calendar turning can change me. I need some outside help. Some spiritual help. Some help from above.

What if there was someone willing to give us this gift of a new start and a new life? Wouldn’t we want that? Wouldn’t that be worth unwrapping?

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him in this way no longer. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 2 Corinthians 5.16-17

This is the reality of what it means to believe and trust in God through Jesus Christ. God does something in us when we believe. The word believe is found 98 times in this Gospel, in part, to emphasize that the believing and trusting is our part, but the saving is God’s part. There is no amount of human effort that can earn or attain salvation and new life. This is God’s doing. And John has a word to describe this great thing:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3.16
This is perhaps the best known verse in the whole Bible. Don’t let over-familiarity allow you to miss it. Did you catch it? God so loved the world that he gave. He gave the world a gift. And when He gave he didn’t hold anything back. It was the very best gift he had to give. He gave his Son.

I know many of you pray for and honor our service men and women who are serving around the world, particularly those who are in combat. With sorrow we look at names and faces in the paper and on the news of those who have fallen in the line of duty. In their deep grief, the families of those soldiers must wonder if they have given a gift that has gone unappreciated by many in this country and around the world.

The story is told of a man who during the difficult days of World War I took his boy for a walk. The small boy noticed that there were stars in the windows of some of the houses they passed.

“Dad, why are there stars in some of the windows.” His father replied that is comes from this terrible war we are in. The stars show that these people have given a son.”

The boy went on silently for awhile. Then he looked up and there was the evening star, shining brightly in the sky. The boy said, “Dad, God must have given a Son, too.”

God gave a gift. Could it be a gift that some have not receive because they don’t know what it cost and how good it is?

Can you see why Jesus was so forceful – Ýou must be born again.

This is it. This is the opportunity, Jesus is telling us. There is no one other way. Money can’t help. Power can’t help. Self-improvement won’t get it. You must receive the gift. Believe and receive. If you are in your forties or older, would you consider that you can have a new life and become the person you were meant to be? If you are young, would you consider you are meant for God’s life and that to wait any longer is to just cheat yourself out of the best gift you could ever receive? What would our church look like if we all received the gift God is offering? And what would happen in our community if we all began to live in God’s life and power today?

God gave us the great gift of new life. Who wouldn’t want that?