Rev. David Holwick Christmas Eve
First Baptist Church (very well-received)
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 24, 2006
Matthew 2:9-11
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I. Most people aren't very good at Christmas gifts.
A. We spend a lot of time buying them.
1) The majority of Americans are in malls on Black Friday.
2) "As soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is eaten, the great
question of buying Christmas presents begins to take the
terrifying shape it has come to assume in recent years."
-- the New York Tribune, 1894.
B. But we don't tend to buy what people really want.
1) Scientists prove it.
The New Yorker magazine had a fascinating article on this.
Joel Waldfogel, an economist at the University of PA,
has been doing a series of studies.
He asks college students to put a value on the presents
they receive.
His main finding is that people spend a lot more on
presents than they're worth to those who receive them.
In other words, you give a person an $80 sweater, but they
would only spend $65 to get it themselves.
#33915
2) Parents discover it.
Did you wait in long lines at the mall to get this year's
must-have toy for your kid, at retail-or-above prices?
Get one of those PlayStation 3's for a thousand bucks on
eBay?
Forget it: the National Toy Hall of Fame has inducted one of
the most cherished toys of childhood into its collection:
the plain old cardboard box.
[hold up large cardboard box]
Chief curator Christopher Bensch says that every adult has
had that disillusioning experience of picking what they
think is a wonderful toy for a child -
And then they find the kid playing with the box.
#30318
(When I was seven, my mom gave us a refrigerator box.
That box became an airplane with seats and windows.
We played in it for days...)
So why not just get them a big box for Christmas and forget
the PlayStation 3?
Your 17-year-old will weep for joy!
C. We don't really know what people want.
1) Researchers find that the biggest problem is when older
people - grandparents - try to buy gifts for younger
people - grandkids.
2) But even people in the same age bracket, like husbands
and wives, don't do that well.
One experiment with long-standing couples asked them to
predict their spouse's taste in furniture.
They found that, in general, people did a poor job of
it.
Most people don't pay much attention to what their
partner likes.
People do a good job of predicting their partner's
preferences only when they shared those preferences.
My idea of what you want, it turns out, has a lot to do
with what I want.
#33915
D. Two solutions.
1) Gift cards. More flexible, not as bad as cash.
2) Don't buy any gifts at all. That's my approach.
I do the family Christmas letter, they do the rest.
II. Everyone gets the main Christmas gift wrong.
A. Strange birthday party.
1) Christmas is the only birthday where the guests get
presents and the honoree does not.
2) What have you gotten for Jesus?
B. You might think he has everything already.
1) The wise men brought the gold, frankincense and myrrh.
2) Humorist Dave Barry notes that gold is always a nice gift,
but frankincense and myrrh, according to the dictionary,
are gum resins.
Who gives gum resins to a baby?
The answer is...Men.
The three wise men, being men, didn't even start shopping
for gifts until the last minute, when most of the stores
in the greater Bethlehem area were closed for
Christmas Eve.
#33911
III. There are still some things you can give Jesus.
A. Honor and worship.
1) Acknowledge his place in this holiday season.
2) Coming to church tonight is good, too!
3) But it is more than carols and special music.
a) Jesus is here.
B. Service.
1) One woman came up to me and asked where she could volunteer
this Christmas season, such as at a soup kitchen.
No one has ever asked me that before!
2) Why not make it a family Christmas project to do something
significant for a needy member of your community?
3) "What you do for the least of these my brothers, you have
done for me."
C. Obedience
1) Turn a hardened area of your life over to Jesus.
2) Our repentance pleases him.
IV. What Jesus really wants is YOU.
A. Give him your heart.
B. Choose to follow him tonight.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#30318 "The Plain Old Cardboard Box," THIS IS TRUE by Randy Cassingham,
December 24, 2005.
#33911 "What Are You Giving Jesus For His Birthday?" by Dave Burchett,
http://daveburchett.com/archive/2006/12/13/5652.aspx,
December 13, 2006.
#33915 "The Economic Trauma Of Christmas Gifts," by James Surowiecki,
The New Yorker Magazine Online, December 18, 2006. Adapted by
Rev. David Holwick.
These and 30,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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