Jesus Christ: God’s Best And Ultimate Gift To The World

Marcel Mauss, the French sociologist, pioneered the study of gifts in different cultures. He theorised the three facets of gift: the obligation to give a gift; the obligation to receive a gift, and the obligation to reciprocate a gift. In all societies, the logic of gift has a way of consolidating social ties.

Over the years, many scholars have identified gift as one of the entry point of corruption and bribery in a world that is spiraling out of its moral compass.

Notwithstanding the casting of gifts in a negative context, gifts have been part of the logic of society since the creation of Man. It brings enemies together as friends and solidifies friendship and kinship ties. To state it bluntly, it converts strangers to comrades, and bloody foes to allies.

In most societies, refusing to accept a gift is a mark of hostility, and an invitation to war. Gifts were so important that in Ashanti history, people who sought to establish connection to the palace gave their daughters as gifts to the Asantehene; no wonder at a time in history, one of the Asantehene is reported by Dupuis to have had 3333 ‘wives’! In contemporary geopolitics, international relations are established and strengthened through gifts.

In 2003, just when I had become a Christian, a received free theological books, worth many dollars, from Dr. Robert Morey, a reformed Christian apologist in the United. These books deepened and strengthened my love for Jesus Christ, and also redefined my theological outlook and marked a watershed in my quest for Christian apologetics. My life after that signal gift has never been the same. It is obvious that in our respective lives, there was one time a gift from a friend or relative changed the course of our lives. We all feel good when a gift is given to us.

God also feels good when He gives a gift to humanity. His greatest and ultimate gift to humankind is His Son Jesus Christ. And the gift of His Son corresponds to the all time need of mankind – sin. In my case, when I received those books from Dr. Robert Morey, it changed the course of my life, as it came at the time I was transitioning from the predilection of Freethinking to a Christian. It was, indeed, a timely gift. We all hope that we would receive a gift that would incredibly meet our dire needs. If you need to cover a distance, possibly you will need a car or any automobile machine as a gift. If you need to get healed from a disease, you will need the gift of medicine. If you wanted to break away from some form of addiction, you will need the gift of the service of a clinical psychologist. If you were ignorant about something, you will need the gift of a teacher. The gift we receive and cherish most, most often than not, reflects our immediate need.

God diagnosed the ultimate need of humankind, and provided the ultimate gift. The ultimate need of man is redemption from sin, which has created a chasm and a wedge between him and God. This need has created a deep sense of hopelessness and restlessness in man, and it was well captured by St. Augustine of Hippo that, “You [God] have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they find rest in you.” The ultimate need of every man is to fill in the vacuum and restlessness in the heart.

Throughout history, many creative thinkers and speculators have devised many ways of filling in that need. This gave rise to religion with all its embellished recursive rituals and ceremonies. For religions like Islam, the need of man will basically be satisfied if man confesses the oneness of Allah and the Prophethood of Mohammed (simply, submission to Allah's will). In Hinduism, this vacuum could be overcome through meditation (yoga practices) to free man from ignorance, which traps him in the cycle of karma and samsara. For the Buddhist, following the Eight Fold Path will free man from selfish craving that keeps him in pain. The New Agers prescribe transcendental meditation to reach the higher self, as a way of freeing oneself from the drudges of life. In African Traditional Religion(s), pragmatic utilitarianism is the means of joining the ancestors.

While all these prescriptions and rituals have the trappings of giving us satisfaction, we never in the end get out of our desire for God, and for bridging the gap between God and us. God looked down from heaven, to use an anthropomorphic expression, and planned for the ultimate redemption of man. He diagnosed the situation and decided that His Son is the ultimate solution. The problem of man is not ignorance or polytheism, or even endless craving. The problem of man is sin. And to save us from sin, no human being, from Abraham through Mohammed to Zachariah, could redeem man, because all human beings have sinned. The devil will be happy to point that out to anyone who claims to redeem sinners. And following the logic of: “No slave can save a fellow slave” or in a more religious parlance, “No sinner can save a fellow sinner,” the solution had to come from God. Angels could not help either, because they ontologically cannot be incarnated!

God decided to offer His sinless Son, Jesus Christ. At the right time in history, He gave us Jesus Christ, who took upon the human nature; became like one of us, and paved the way for our redemption. That gift has remained the deciding and momentous factor in history. In the accounts of the Gospels, Jesus Christ declared His mission as one of a saviour and redeemer. In His manifesto, recorded in Luke 4:18, He clearly set out His redemption imperatives. He came to save the lost sinners. Since His incarnation, no one who has encountered Him has remained the same. He transforms life; He does what all religions put together, through their repetitive rituals, cannot do: making saints out of sinners.

This gift is timely and it is what every man needs. But, as you receive the gift, you have to reciprocate, and the reciprocation is to love Him, and tell others about Him. The world gives gifts in Christmas season, but none comes close to the ultimate gift our God offers us. Jesus Christ remains God’s only gift to man. Refusing to accept the gift of God is to perpetuate your hostility to God, and the cost of that is eternal damnation.

As we reenact the birth of Jesus Christ, let us accept God’s free gift, for He will soon come again, not as a gift to the world, but the ultimate judge in all power and glory to judge sinners. Accept Him now while you have breath, for eternity is just a breath away!

Merry Christmas
Satyagraha
Charles Prempeh
African University College of Communications, Accra, Ghana