The Newspaper-Wrapped Gift

I’m assuming in the next few weeks you will be going to a family or office Christmas party with some type of gift exchange. Yes?

And perhaps this gift exchange will be the type where everyone gets a number—representing their turn to select a present from under the tree. You know this game, right? It’s the one where you can steal a gift from someone who already selected it.

So, I have a question for you:

How do you select a gift without knowing what’s under the wrapping?

Do you select by size? Weight? How nicely the package is wrapped and decorated?

I gotta be honest—I never want the one in newspaper wrap.

I figure the weird single guy brought it.

And I’m pretty sure he picked it up at Walgreens on his way to the party.

It can’t be anything I want.

Yes, I’ll look past the newspaper-wrapped gift every time.

It’s interesting, when God gave the greatest gift of all time, he chose “packaging” that people looked right past…

Check out this prophecy (written 700+ years before the birth of Jesus) from the book of Isaiah:

There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum.

But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!

He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him. (Isaiah 53.2-6 MSG)

Wow. Talk about newspaper wrap.

“Nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look.”

“He was looked down on and passed over.”

The greatest gift ever, and yet so many didn’t notice.

Maybe this should cause us to pause, think…

And look.

Really look.

Yes, God is in the big—the spectacular.

But He is also in the small—the seemingly insignificant.

The truth is, God is everywhere. He is with us. Have you noticed?