Margery Tallcott relates that during the Depression she and her husband were barely making the money stretch from week to week. It was particularly tight during the weeks leading up to Christmas. Their finances would not allow for purchasing gifts for each other or for their son, Pete.
With Christmas a week away, they told Pete there would be no store-bought presents for any of them. “But I’ll tell you what we can do,” said his father with an inspiration born of heartbreak. “We can make pictures of the presents we’d like to give each other.”
For the next few days each of the family members worked secretly with some laughs and giggles along the way. They were able to scrape together enough to purchase a small, straggly tree and trimmed it with pitiful-looking decorations. It still seemed beautiful to them. Tallcott writes, “Yet, on Christmas morning, never was a tree heaped with such riches! The gifts were only pictures of gifts, to be sure, cut out or drawn and colored and painted, nailed and hammered, and pasted and sewed. But they were presents, luxurious beyond our dreams....”
Peter’s gift to his parents was a crayon drawing of flashy colors in the most modernistic style of the Depression era. It was the picture of three people laughing — a man, a woman, and a little boy. They had their arms around one another and were, in a sense, one person. Under the picture Pete had printed one word: US.1
The prophet Jeremiah looks down the corridor of time to see that God has given us a gift. It is the gift of his one and only son, Jesus, who has come to put his arms around us and share the Father’s love!
God’s Gift Includes His Faithful Promises (Jeremiah 33:14)
A promise is a pledge from one person to another. God has pledged to restore Israel and in a limited sense that occurs in a nationalistic setting. The completeness of their return hinges on the coming of David’s Son, the Messiah. For centuries the Jews looked forward to the coming of the Messianic redeemer who would free them from bondage. As invaders came and raped the nation their only hope lay in a nationalistic redeemer, a Savior, a Messiah who would bring them freedom from the invading armies. As God’s time came for the Messiah to be born in Israel, the people were waiting and expecting him to release them from the overlords of Rome. God’s promise was not for political release, but spiritual release. Their sins held them in bondage more than any invading army ... they just didn’t seem to understand that fact.
Many seek God to release them from their bondage to some exterior enemy ... when their real enemy lies inside of them. People think if only God would release them from their illnesses, inferior jobs, bad marriages, financial difficulties, dependencies on alcohol or drugs, or whatever demon holds them they would be free. But God has promised to enter our lives and live inside of us where he can rid our sinful lifestyle by releasing us of our sins that have captured and enslaved us. Then and only then will we be free and his promise be realized!
Booker T. Washington describes meeting an ex-slave from Virginia in his book, Up from Slavery. He writes that the slave had made a contract with his master, prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, to the effect that the slave was permitted to buy his own freedom, by paying so much per year for his body; and while he was paying for his freedom, he was permitted to labor where and for whom he pleased.
He discovered that Ohio paid better wages so he decided to travel there for work. When the Emancipation Proclamation became law he was freed from any obligation to his master. But this man continued to work until he had enough money to pay the full price of his freedom. He walked the greater portion of the distance back to where his old master lived in Virginia and placed the last dollar, with interest, in his hands.
Washington said that in talking to the man about this event, he was told that he knew that he did not have to pay his debt, but that he had given his word to his master, and his word he had never broken!2
God has given his promise of restoration and he has never broken his promise.
God’s Gift Includes His Righteousness (Jeremiah 33:15)
The concept of righteousness carries with it the connotation of fairness, justice, and honesty. Righteousness is applied to someone who is right in character and action, equally in what is said and what is done.
God is righteous and possesses righteousness. Because of who God is he is under obligation to do right in whatever action he takes. (See Genesis 18:25; Romans 9:14.)
Donald Metz wrote about the concept of righteousness as the conformity of God to the moral and spiritual law, which he has revealed. Metz writes, “Righteousness is the consistent and unvarying expression of God’s nature in complete harmony with his holiness. To Brunner, the righteousness of God means, ‘the constancy of God’s will in view of his purpose and plan for Israel ...’ thus righteousness ‘is simply the holiness of God as it is expressed when confronted with the created world.’ To Barth, the righteousness of God means that in founding and maintaining the fellowship with his creation God ‘wills and expresses and establishes what corresponds to his own worth.’ "3
We need a God who is fair. He will be impartial, non-discriminatory, non-biased, just, and reasonable. All people will be judged with his open-mindedness.
We need a God who understands justice. He will deal with us impartially on culture, race, sex, social or financial status, age, or any other label humans like to use.
We need a God who tells us the honest truth. God stands as the ultimate truth even if our age does not believe in ultimate truth.
Leo Cox said that our righteousness is conforming to the image of God by his grace and in childlike innocence and simplicity. When we are converted and become a child of God we have a positive inclination to do good deeds. It is more than just wanting to do good things. It is an inward righteousness by the grace of God on the inside manifesting itself outwardly in action toward others. We must be honest in our lifestyle. George Washington said, “I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man."4
The basis of this is found in Matthew 23 when a Pharisaical lawyer asked Jesus a question to test him. He asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” (Matthew 22:36 RSV) and Jesus answered him with the twin commandments:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first command. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. — Matthew 22:37-39 (RSV)
As the old song says, “You can’t have the one without the other.”