The gift of Christmas is not what we first expect it to be.

Time seemed to accelerate beginning with Canadian Thanksgiving in October. Then before we knew it was Remembrance Day, then Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday in November, then the planning for the Christmas holidays, decorating, making New Year’s reservations, attending the social office parties, family gatherings, choral concerts, organizing shopping days and finalizing all our lists in December. My head starts to spin just thinking about everything we associate with those markers on the calendar.

We wrap up our expectations of Christmas around these activities. Indeed, participating in all of it creates expectations about the destination, intended or not. What do you expect when Christmas Day finally arrives? What do you want Christmas to be for you?

Part of the challenge at this time of year is trying to match what we want with what we actually end up doing.

The Gospel today describes the people in first century Palestine as filled with expectation (Luke 3:15). What were they expecting? They were looking for someone to come and save them, a Messiah. They were a people who walked in darkness (John 1), in a troubled time in history. They yearned for a saviour to liberate them from oppression.

And they suspected that maybe this saviour was John the Baptist – a charismatic speaker with a magnetic personality that could captivate the crowds with shock-and-awe oration never-mind his poor taste in fashion.

The gift of Christmas is not what we first expect it to be.

When I think deeply about my favourite Christmas memories, they were moments that happened despite the planning and to-do lists. What sticks, what made the greatest impression on me from Christmas times past, they were all moments that were unexpected.

These precious memories came more as a surprise: a serendipitous encounter with a friend, an unexpected moment outside on a winter’s night under starlit skies, walking on snow-packed streets, delivering gifts, listening or singing to a certain piece of Christmas music, a smile and healing tears in the midst of sorrow and terrible loss.

The gift of Christmas is not what we first expect it to be. John the Baptist redirects the attention of his followers to the one who is the expected Messiah, but not in the way they expected. Jesus is the gift of Christmas who still surprises in the way he comes to us.

We’ve been taught to consider Jesus today not as a political leader to free people from military oppression. But we’ve also been taught that Jesus comes to us mainly as a ‘caring’ God, a God who is gentle, who cares, coddles, protects and watches over us.

But Jesus was also someone to reckon with. There was this no-nonsense, straight-from-the-shoulder truthfulness about the way Jesus related not just to his opponents, the Pharisees, but to his very own disciples as well.

And he was not always necessarily nice. Jesus called Peter, “Satan” in one sizzling exchange (Matthew 16:23). Jesus never said, “Blessed are the nice”. He publicly expressed his anger, causing a social ruckus on temple grounds. There he physically disrupted the unjust practices of the money changers (John 2).

The Christmas narrative is not just about coddling and comforting the privileged. John the Baptist, if no other character from the Christmas story does it better, calls us out of our comfort zone, and challenges us in our image of the Christ, the gift at Christmas. Jesus, both the expected and the unexpected one.

The true gift at Christmas makes us think twice about what we are receiving. In the One who comes to us at Christmas in ten short days, we may not expect what we actually receive. The gift may surprise us, catch us off guard. This may make us feel uncomfortable at first. That part of Christmas is unsung.

Yet, one other truth of Christmas gleaned from the biblical narrative: The gift came at the right time. God gave the people what they needed, when they needed it most.

The baby born in Bethlehem had a forerunner to get the people ready for the gift. Even though they were warned, they were still surprised and bewildered when the gift arrived: The messy stable. The crying infant. The bloody cross. The empty tomb.

Because what they got in Jesus was not a Messiah riding a chariot at the head of tens of thousands of warriors thundering up the Kidron Valley to Jerusalem. What they got was a vulnerable human who showed us the very face of God.

Today we lighted the ‘joy’ candle on the wreath. This third Sunday of Advent is traditionally called ‘Gaudete’, and it is rose coloured. ‘Gaudete’ is from Latin which means, “rejoice”, from Philippians (3:1/4:4) – “Rejoice, rejoice in the Lord always! Again I say rejoice!” Gaudete Sunday gives us permission to praise God and give God thanks for the gift, expected yet unexpected, that soon arrives.

Do you expect to be surprised? When you are, that experience brings the joy of Christmas.