Worth It

By now, with Christmas approaching, many of us are in the thick of searching for gifts for families and friends. There’s a delicate balance involved—you want Christmas to be a special occasion, but you don’t want to break the bank; you want to honor and please the special people in your life, but you don’t want to get sucked into the consumerist hysteria. While most of us end up purchasing some or all of our gifts, some folks labor lovingly and diligently over handmade presents—and with the scarcity of time in our hurried age, these may be the costliest treasures of all. So there is a judgment to make in the case of each gift. Is the money or time I am investing in this gift—in absolute terms and, in the case of pint-sized child accountants who are so sensitive to these things, proportional terms—worth it?

By Rembrandt - Own work, Yelkrokoyade, 20/07/2011, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Jesus told the briefest of stories about a certain man who had to make a judgment about a purchase: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44). There are so many layers in that story. The man is so certain about the inestimable value of what he’s discovered that he devotes all that he has to possessing it, but the treasure is hidden from everyone else—as far as they’re concerned, he may have lost his mind! And usually this parable is interpreted to be about us, the people who hear Jesus’ message about the kingdom. We’ve caught a glimpse of God’s kingdom come near in Jesus, and if we truly behold what that is, then we’ll joyfully offer all that we have and all that we are to possess a share of it.

I don’t think that’s wrong, but maybe there’s another layer. What if it’s about Jesus? What if Jesus is the one who perceives the inestimable value of our own redeemed, healed lives? What if he’s the one who joyfully gives up everything he has, his very life, to win us back to God? What if the story is not about an act of selfish acquisitiveness, but overflowing generosity? And what if the Christmas story itself is about God going “all in,” putting everything on the line, giving up the remote invulnerability of heaven to settle into a bed of straw on a cold Christmas night? Was it worth it? Were we worth it? God thought so.

As you make your judgments this season about what to buy or make and what to leave aside, remember that the God of heaven found you to be of inestimable value, that you are worth being born for, being hungry and cold for, being struck and insulted and crucified for, dying and rising again for. You are the object of God’s unimaginable and joyful love and generosity, at Christmas and always. Repeat the sounding joy…

A version of this article ran in the church newsletter, the Highlands Highlights.