Quote On Christmas by William Willimon

The Christmas story - the one according to Luke not Dickens - is not about how blessed it is to be givers but how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers.  We prefer to think of ourselves as givers - powerful, competent, self-sufficient, capable people who are motivated to benefit the less fortunate.  This is in direct contradiction to the biblical account of the first Christmas.  There we are portrayed not as the givers we wish we were but as the receivers we are.  Luke and Matthew go to great lengths to demonstrate that we - with our power, generosity, competence and capabilities - had little to do with God's work in Jesus.  God wanted to do something for us so strange, so utterly beyond the bounds of human imagination, so foreign to human projection, that God had to resort to angels, pregnant virgins, and stars in the sky to get it done.  We didn't think of it, understand it or approve it.  All we could do at Bethlehem was receive it.

William Willimon in Watch for the Light (reviewed here)