The Closest We Get to Perfect This Side of Heaven

I still love to go shopping at Christmas. I enjoy the music and decorations, even the hustle and bustle, even if I don’t actually buy anything. I love to people watch people as they seek that perfect gift for a loved one. But, of course, there are also those whose eyes are more glazed over as they dream of getting home. 

Something about Christmas urges us to seek perfection; the perfect gift, the perfect home, or that perfect meal. Unfortunately, Pinterest, TV commercials, and Hallmark movies set a standard of perfection few of us can meet. 

Years ago, I had the grand idea to make my wrapping paper. I had this vision of all the wrapping paper coordinating in golds, creams, and brown. So I went to the store and bought white and brown paper, sparkling gold and cream stamps, gold and cream ribbon for bows and ribbon streams, twine to add a rustic touch to the sparkling gold, and several Christmas stampers. At first, I kept up with wrapping the gifts as I bought them. But, oh, those gifts had the most beautiful ribbon streams and intricate bows on them. The usual Christmas activities commenced, taking time away from the complex ribbon, bows, and stamping. School plays, cookies exchanges, and gatherings of families and friends filled my time instead. 

Christmas Eve came before I knew it, with only a few gifts wrapped ahead of time. So after the Christmas Eve service, the reading of the Birth of Jesus and the Night Before Christmas, and cookies for Santa, I settled in to finish up that wrapping. That’s right; I was up all night wrapping those gifts. Somehow all those bows, ribbons, and stamps lost their luster about midnight. But since I spent all of that money making my wrapping paper and already had a theme going, I had to use it. And how do you think that night went? That’s right, me pounding stamps on the paper, rushing through those bows, and the ribbon streams were long gone. 

Regardless of my early morning pounding, it looked pretty good, although not quite perfect, as I turned the tree lights off and went to bed in the wee hours of Christmas morning. I was excited as the kids came out Christmas morning. I was not prepared for the fact that my 5, 7 and 9-year-old children wouldn’t even look at the wrapping paper, and the living room was filled with thrown aside paper in about 30 minutes. All those hours for a perfection that wasn’t and a pretty good scene that no one cared about.

Interestingly, we are trying to reach some worldly, impossible perfection to celebrate the anything but perfect birth of our Savior, at least by the world’s standards. A woman pregnant before marriage, having her child in a stable full of animals because there was no place else available is not what we would consider a perfect birth. 

And yet, it was perfect. 

"The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:14

I am so glad that God’s idea of perfection doesn’t necessarily match the world’s idea of perfection. We can pursue the perfect Christmas, but without Jesus, it is empty. We can look for that perfect gift, but the perfect gift came that night more than 2000 years ago when a child was born in a cold and dirty stable. A child that was divinely human and eventually became the sacrifice for our redemption. 

As we enter this Christmas season, many of us will be looking for a great gift for someone special. As we find those gifts and give them with love, let’s remember to also share the love that came with the birth of a baby to a virgin mother—a child wrapped in mercy and grace that saved the world.