The great christmas gift exchange.

Each December holiday season a competitive, calculating sport plays out in homes, neighborhoods, schools, and office parties across America.

The great Christmas gift exchange.

This is the game of trading up gifts you have received.

The short version of this is played at a party, usually called “White Elephant Gifts” or “Dirty Santa”, where you must pick a wrapped gift from a pile or steal a gift someone else in the circle has already unwrapped.

The longer version happens after Christmas, when you take an unworthy, unwanted gift back to the store from whence it came, and fight crowds of ninja-shoppers to exchange it for something you really want. You trade up.

Or, you re-wrap the present and re-gift it next year!

This may seem shallow, even childish. Why not be happy with what your friends and family gave you? Aren’t you ever satisfied? Actually, this game mimics the true Story of Christmas. Since time began, humans have been playing this game with the first Giver:

1. In the Garden of Eden we exchanged God’s creation for our own self-centered desires. [genesis 3]
2. In Bethlehem Jesus exchanged His glory for an earthly existence. [luke 2]
3. On the cross Jesus exchanged His innocence for our sin conviction and penalty. [luke 23]
4. In our moment of conversion Jesus exchanged His righteousness for our rebellion. [romans 5]
5. In our everyday existence Jesus exchanges His life for our daily life. [galatians 2]
6. In heaven we will exchange our corruptible bodies for incorruptible [1 corinthians 15:51-53]

This great Christmas gift exchange continues throughout our lives. In Ephesians, Paul offers these daily examples of how we are to continually give up the junk we have clung to, and receive Christ’s gifts of new life. We exchange:

• Dead in sin for life in grace and mercy [2:1-7]
• Separated, hostile alienation for citizenship with God [2:11-19]
• Hostility for peaceful reconciliation [2:14]
• Confused immaturity for Christ-like maturity [4:14-15]
• Futile, ignorant thinking for loving, truthful thinking [4:15-18]
• Corrupt, lustful, uncontrolled self for God-like, righteous, holy self [4:19-24]
• Lying for truth-telling [4:25]
• Stealing for work and sharing [4:28]
• Unwholesome talk for helpful, constructive, beneficial talk [4:29]
• Bitter anger for kind, compassionate forgiveness [4:31-32]
• Sexual immorality for loving, sacrificial imitation of Christ [5:1-3]
• Obscene, foolish, coarse joking for thanksgiving [5:4]
• Darkness for light-filled life in the Lord [5:8-14]
• Unwise foolishness for wisdom [5:15-17]
• Drunkenness for Spirit-filling [5:18]

You see, Jesus actually ENJOYS playing this game of gift exchanging! He wants us to bring Him our tattered, broken gifts, so he can present us with abundant-life gifts from the Father.

This Christmas, trade-up!