The Gift of Nothing
The Gift of Nothing || Day 1
Psalms 23:1 NIV
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
Luke 24:1-12 NIV
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words. When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
You better watch out, You better not lie
You better live true, I'm telling you why
Jesus Christ is coming real soon
He sees you when you're sinning, He knows when you're a fake
He knows when you've been bad or good, So be good for your own sake!
He's making a list
And checking it twice
Going to find out who has been living the life
Jesus Christ is coming real soon
One of the greatest fears as a child was that on Christmas morning we would wake up with such high expectations of the gifts that would be found under the tree for us, but instead only to find that our behavior for the past year was rewarded with coal, or even worse, “NOTHING” would be under the tree for us.
Constantly we were reminded, “I better be good, because Santa was watching and making a list, and if I was not good enough I would be on the naughty list and Santa would bring me coal for Christmas”. We found ourselves cringing at the melody of the song, “I’m getting NOTHING for Christmas”, as the lyrics echoed through our heads we would be reminded of all the wrong things we had done. “I’m getting NOTHING for Christmas, mommy and daddy are mad. I’m getting NOTHING for Christmas, cause I ain’t been NOTHING but bad”, seemed to perfectly describe our habitual behavior with such a harsh reality of what we could anticipate receiving for Christmas that year. The fact was, it was not that we tried to be bad, but that type behavior just seemed to come so natural for us. No matter how hard we tried, we always seemed to fall short of being good enough.
Christmas Day would then fast approach and no matter how bad we had been that year, we always found gifts of grace under the tree that turned our anticipation of disappointment into delight as we tore away the colorful wrapping paper to reveal each present we so desperately desired and earnestly asked for had been received.
The very thing that I love and am grateful for today is explained by something that I once feared, “getting NOTHING”.