December 20: Isaiah 53:12c / Luke 23:34

The Most Transforming Gift of All!

While the secular and economic world in these weeks leading up to Christmas would have us focus on spending for presents and gifts, followers of Jesus Christ have a different focus. It likewise is on gifts, but emphasizes the reality that God first gave to us…

… by bringing us into this world and inviting us to acknowledge God as Lord in our lives;

… by God giving us God’s Son, Jesus Christ, the one foretold in Isaiah 53:12c, “Yet he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.” This brings to mind the Gaither hymn, “God sent his Son, they called him Jesus, he came to love, heal and forgive; he lived and died to buy my pardon, an empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives” He was the Gift of all gifts.

Equally significant is how Jesus demonstrated the gift in action; while being nailed to the cross he still looked down upon the nail drivers, not with anger, not with hate and resentment, but with compassion, uttering in the midst of his pain, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” As Jesus exercised the transforming gift of forgiveness, we are reminded of how we are to pray: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others.”  We who have been given the gift, by accepting God’s gift of forgiveness, are bound to extend that same gift of forgiveness to others, no matter what!  If we expect God to forgive us, we must forgive others.


The Rt. Rev. Paul A. Graf

Bishop of the Moravian Church



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