In the grand human tradition, we, like children, cling to our own side of the Christmas story.  It is beautiful and sweet and tender and brings us life and peace.  We are the recipients of the greatest of all gifts, intimacy with the One who both made and bought us.

As parents, we know that there’s another side to gift giving though.  For every gift received, there is a gift given.  And that giving isn’t free.

The world received her King.

Heaven felt the loss.  The Almighty knew the pain of Easter’s sting the night the angels ‘sang.’  

Think of others in this age old story: Elizabeth, Zechariah, and John, Mary, Joseph, all the moms and dads of the little tikes of Bethlehem.  For all the joy of this season for us today, they knew the price tag this wonderful gift carried.

Elizabeth longed for this son.  He was her one and only.  Yet the moment he became hers, he walked into the wilderness and onto a harsh, lonely, and quiet road toward demise.  All a mother’s desires for her son, Elizabeth knew she would never have those.  She surely wanted comfort and success and longevity and greatness.  He knew too well that was not his call.  She gave the gift of a herald.  And the cost to her was a son.

Mary’s gift to us was a Savior, the cost to her was everything.

She gave her reputation, her security, her comforts, and her health.  Joseph wasn’t there later in life, gone sometime between Jesus’s 12th and 30th years.  She must have done much alone.  She watched her firstborn suffer enormously.  She knew of His greatness and had to stand silently as the world so grievously misunderstood Him.  Our gift, her part of the price.

All those moms and dads.  That tragic night in Bethlehem when all the town mourned their losses.  All those precious futures, those sweet toddling voices, tender sleeping faces, and tiny bear hugs.  All that possibility, all those hopes, all the desires of any parent for their children.  All part of the price.

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying…     Luke 2:13

Ever notice that.  Do you even see it now.  

We sing it, we celebrate and turn it into a chorus.  The angels, however, spoke it.

They do know how to sing.  They are known to do it often.  But this doesn’t seem to be the right time for that.  This news was glorious, but it was somber.  I believe they knew the tomorrow that this today would bring.  

The gift we rightly celebrate this season, it was not free.  Just as a parent longs to see gratitude in their children on Christmas morning, so our Parent surely longs for the same.  This glorious gift held a hefty tag and there were many who were called on to pay a price.

There’s a tough lesson in that for us all.  Today the recipient, tomorrow the gift giver.  Are you being called to submission and sacrifice or to thanksgiving and praise today?  It is certainly to one or the other.