The Pastor's Perspective for December

Sometimes you can learn a lot from television. I don’t mean from the educational programs – although they can be very informative. I mean from the Situation Comedies! Recently my daughter has gotten me interested in a program about four friends who are Science Geeks. On a Christmas episode, one of the friends, Sheldon, receives a gift from his neighbor, Penny, who lives across the hall.

Sheldon  is very awkward socially, and he reacts almost as if Penny had handed him a bomb. “I don’t want a gift,” he tells her. “If I receive a gift then I have to make restitution. I have to give you a gift of equal value in return. How would I know what to get?” But Penny insists, and Sheldon reluctantly accepts her gift.

Then  Sheldon finds a way to address the problem. He buys several fruit baskets. After he opens Penny’s gift and determines its value by looking it up on the Internet, he plans to give her a fruit basket (or baskets) that add up to the same price. The perfect solution! Or is it?

When  he removes the wrapping, Sheldon is in for a surprise! One day at the restaurant where she works, Penny happened to wait on Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played Spock in television’s original science fiction series, “Star Trek.” Sheldon, who is a huge Star Trek fan, is overwhelmed when he sees a napkin with Spock’s trademark greeting written on it, “Live long and prosper,” signed by Leonard Nimoy himself! He brings in every fruit basket he had bought and lays them all at Penny’s feet. “It’s not enough!” he exclaims.

Isn’t  this a good illustration of the meaning of Christmas? “For God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son…” (John 3:16). How could we put a price on such a gift? How could we possibly pay God back? It only stands to reason that believers would respond in amazement and wonder at the generosity of God. “Let us thank God for His priceless gift!”

 (2 Corinthians 9:15).