"I have something for you!"

How often every year do we hear someone say that?  Doesn't that phrase invoke instant delight?

"I have something for you!" when you're out in a thickly-populated room of festive people, and the antecedent hope of meeting up with the giver later to receive the object.  "I have something for you!" over the internet from a distant-but-close friend, and checking the doorstep later.  It instills something definite - and positive - for which to wait.  However, because other people deal with sinful natures in the exact same way we do, these promises get lost in transit more frequently than expected.  En route to retrieving the gift, distractions of "more important" things stop the person in his or her tracks, or the means to convey it slips out of control and the awaited thing disappoints us.  Don't you hate that?

Every Christmas and every day, God says, "I have something for you!" and absolutely means it.  His Son and His precious forgiveness, leading to a home in heaven, stand by for us all the time.  The Lord fully intends that all should grasp this gift for their very own.

Many churches teach that God declares something like, "I have something for you!  It's going to arrive when you go to pick it up.  Even though you don't know what it is, you have to want the gift first."  It's "freely" given to the individual, but there are too many prospective gaps.  Where will it arrive?  How will it arrive?  What if I don't pick it up the right thing, or break the gift once I get it?  How do I make sure I want it?  The hope gets dropped in the pileup of questions.

Oppositely, the Bible confirms that the Holy Spirit alone delivers the treasure through the promised means of grace, tells us why exactly we need Christ's work, instill in us a want of it, and figuratively holds up our hands and tears open the present for us.  Even then, the giving is not done - God is the reason His grace stays with us and never expires.  Possessing things that are "instant" is really nice (hot cocoa mix and oatmeal?).  In reality, nothing is more instant than the grace received by faith:  the Father ALREADY sent the Son.  Christ ALREADY won justification for ALL people.  Upon contact with the Word and Sacraments, the Holy Spirit INSTANTLY makes this righteousness your own via repentance and faith He INSTANTLY brings. AT ONCE, your perfect eternal destination is sure.

Most importantly, the Lord calls us saying "I have something FOR YOU!" personally, through the One-on-one act of hearing the Word, Baptism, eating and drinking Holy Communion, and being absolved by another Christian.  Yes, He has something for "you" in the plural sense, but without the application of a direct inference to one of us, that statement would not hold any significance.  Nowhere does Scripture read, "I have something - for someone else!"

For my Christmas gift, I'm going somewhere - to heaven someday.  Has your future present been opened yet?

Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. 2 Corinthians 1:22

Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. Hebrews 6:17-18

"That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown" - even better than a security blanket.