What makes a great gift? The greatest gifts are thoughtful, rare, personalized, long-lasting, timely, and extravagantly gracious.

When we consider God gifting us with His son (John 3:16), we are confronted by a truly amazing gift. There has never been a more thoughtful, rare, personal, long-lasting, or timely gift, especially considering there has never been a more undeserving group of people to receive such a disproportionately kind and extravagantly gracious gift.

Two Sundays ago, we looked at Galatians 4:4-7, "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." We were reminded of the astonishing truth that God sent Jesus to fulfill God's righteous laws and qualify us, though being slaves to sin, to be adopted into God's family.

Last Sunday, we looked at John 6:22-40. "Do not work for the food[gifts] that perishes, but for the food [gift] that endures to eternal life,which the Son of Man will give to you” (John 6:27). We discovered that Jesus is far more than a temporal gift like a meal for the hungry, water for the thirsty, or sight for the blind. Jesus is the only eternally sufficient gift. To see Jesus as the one who can get us the gifts we think we want and need is like settling for a fast food combo meal instead of an invitation to an eternal never-ending banquet with the finest and most extravagantly prepared food.

This Sunday, we will focus on John 1:4-10. The prophet Isaiah prophesied, "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone" (Is. 9:2).

Why is there so much emphasis on light and darkness in the Bible specifically regarding the Incarnation of Jesus? The Bible describes humanity as walking in darkness. Does humanity have the capacity to discover, create, or devise the light? Can you imagine how amazing and glorious the gift of light would be to those trapped in darkness?