What was your biggest surprise today?

Was it a new iPad? A sleek new cellphone? A beautiful ring? Perhaps you welcomed a new, furry, four-legged family member into your home.

I have what I believe to be an unfair reputation for ruining surprises this time of year. I contend that it’s because people tend to leave things where I’ll find them. My wife says I snoop.

But the truth is that I love the surprises at Christmas. Wondering what’s inside those gaily wrapped boxes, tearing at the paper and carefully removing bows so they can be used again next year is all part of the fun we have on Christmas morning.

There were so many years when I was a boy that I spent the weeks before the holiday carefully marking up Sears catalogs to make sure my parents knew what I thought I wanted. I don’t think I ever got one of those things on the dog-eared pages of those catalogs. What I do recall is that what I got was always better than what I’d asked for, more than I’d hoped.

It seems to me today that the lesson I learned then was similar to the lesson the world learned on that first Christmas.

The world wanted social justice. The Jewish people wanted a king who would save them from the oppressive rule of the Roman empire.

But God surprised us all.

Wrapped up in swaddling cloths and lying amongst the hay of a manger, was a gift from God so much better than those things. He gave us His Son, who would save us from our sins. He gave us reconciliation. He gave we who had been at war with him since the time of Adam and Eve a peace treaty, a gift of true love.

Wrapping himself in the flesh of a child, God delivered the best Christmas surprise ever. It wasn’t what any of us would have asked for, but it was just what we need.

I hope your day is full of wonderful surprises. God bless you, and Merry Christmas.