Well, It Seemed Like a Good Idea in the Beginning

A few years ago, I decided that my daughters needed a trampoline for Christmas…so I set out on a quest to find the perfect one. I thought it would be a great idea to set it up on Christmas Eve after my girls had gone to sleep so they could wake up the next morning and find it outside. My plans were perfect…at least until I opened up the box containing 176,423 parts (that’s hyperbole for those of you who care about details).

I had a friend come help me, and I’m grateful he was there to hold pieces in place while I tried to piece them together. There were instructions in the box, but you’ve got to wonder who writes that stuff! Man, the technical jargon mixed with bad English…what a combination. And the fact that it was like 20-something degrees outside while I was trying to put the trampoline together…that didn’t help. I couldn’t handle all the screws and bolts and nuts and springs with my gloves, so I was having to do it bare-handed. Do you get the picture?!? I was handling metal parts bare-handed in 20-something degree weather on a night that I couldn’t just give up and do it another day.

Finally, with the help of my more mechanically-inclined friend, we finished the trampoline. I don’t remember exactly how long it took to put that thing together, but I remember it took much longer than I thought it would. I have to confess to you…before I finished, I was rethinking my decision to give my girls that trampoline! Man, it just turned out to be so much more than I had planned. I had lost my Christmas spirit by the end of the evening!

That whole experience makes me think about God’s gift at Christmas. God is infinitely more complex and inexplicable than anything in the universe (let alone a trampoline); and yet, God's Christmas “presence” isn’t reserved for some privileged group of mechanically-inclined geniuses. At Christmas God became simple; the mysterious one became visible, small, and even vulnerable. Through Jesus’ birth, God revealed himself to ordinary people. As the Gospel of John says, “No one has ever seen God … (but) Jesus has made him known.” God didn't send thousands of pieces; he sent one piece—a Person, God-in-the-flesh, Jesus Christ. And he also sent clear instructions—believe in and follow Jesus.