...just what I needed

Who would think that what was needed to transform and save the earth
might not be a plan or army, proud in purpose, proved in worth?
Who would think, despite derision, that a child should lead the way?
God surprises earth with heaven, coming here on Christmas Day.
---John L. Bell and Graham Maule, 1987

"Oh, it's just what I needed!" I wonder how many times this refrain was heard around Christmas trees and hearths today as family and friends gathered and opened packages. I also wonder how many different ways there are to speak this simple statement --- "Just what I needed!" "Just what I needed?" "JUST what I NEEDED!" (teen angst version) "Juuuuust what I needed!" (flat tire when you're running late version). The funny thing is, there have been a couple of times I've gotten that gift, you know the one, that I can't quite figure out. I don't know the giver's motivation, or what good it will be to me, or (honestly) whether this person even knows me at all. It's the kind of gift that tempts me to say, in one of it's variations, "Just what I needed?"

The world, then as it does now, clamored for a ruler with some muscle behind his rhetoric. A little firepower to back up his diplomacy. Someone with the guts to stick it to the man, not back down,  to throw off the yoke of Roman oppression. Enemies smell weakness, they will eat you alive. No time, this, for peacemakers, for path-straighteners, for do-gooders, for God's sake.

And then the gift we are given, the one that confuses and confounds, turns out to be our salvation. Turns out to be "just what we needed".

Thanks be to God, on this Christmas Day, that we don't get to pick out our own gifts.