The “White Elephant Gift Exchange.” A favorite staple of many a holiday party everywhere. While the rules may vary from family to family, the basic premise is the same. Everyone brings a gift and draws a number. On your turn, you may steal a gift that has already been opened or you may pick a new gift from those yet to be opened.  If your gift is stolen, you are given the same options: steal a gift or pick an unopened one.  The game continues until everyone has had a turn and has received a gift. It’s fun and everyone has a good time (especially if your circle of friends has those specific gag gifts that are included year after year). This year, however, one such gift exchange offered a special gift for those who noticed . . . a glimpse of the Gospel.

Every year, one of the holiday season highlights is the White Elephant Gift Exchange held at the company I work for. Our event is a little more high-class than your run-of-the-mill version. While traditional White Elephant gifts are items found around one's home or re-gifts of past presents the giver doesn’t want, my company asks that we bring a new gift within a certain price range. This ensures everyone goes home with something nice, even if it’s not exactly something they might want. We’ve also tweaked the rules a bit to increase gift swaps and make the game rather hectic. Highly coveted items (meaning they are often stolen) are typically alcohol and gift cards.

A popular White Elephant rule is that once the game is over, the person who went first and only had the choice of an unopened gift has the option of making one final. This is the case at my office and this year the person who chose first was Maggie. [1] When the dust had cleared, Maggie held a bottle of vodka but preferred a gift card. Nora, another employee, ended up with one of the better gift cards of the night. You can see what’s about to happen. Maggie held her bottle out to Nora, the universal sign for “I’m taking your gift.” Nora immediately protested, citing the fact that she does not drink alcohol.

Now I must pause here and explain one of our “rules” and its backstory.  Rule number 1 is “No Whining!” While there is a serious reason for this rule (backstory to follow), we handle it rather light-heartedly. For starters, we call out one unsuspecting employee as an example of a whiner, surprising the target and evoking a round of laughter.  "Rule Number 1: No Whining . . . Donny!” Next, the rule is repeated multiple times (humor through repetition), including immediately after the statement “You might end up with the gift you brought or a gift you don’t like. Remember . . . no whining.” And that leads me to the backstory. A long time ago in an office far, far away (well, only a few miles away), someone ended the gift exchange holding the gift they themselves brought. They were not happy about it and let everyone know. They weren’t mean or offensive, but it was clear they felt slighted, cheated, and that the situation was rather unfair. The next year the “No Whining” rule was instated.

The reason I bring this up now is that while Nora was not exactly whining, the spirit of the rule revolves around the fact that you may end up with something for which you have absolutely no use or desire. That’s just part of the game. We’ve all been there. Still, Nora pleaded with Maggie not to take her gift card, but Maggie was insistent on making the trade. We were at a stalemate.

That was until Joshua stepped in. He told Nora to swap her gift card for Maggie’s Vodka.  Then he was would give Nora his own gift card in exchange for the Vodka. That was acceptable to Nora and the final swaps were made.

Did you see it?  The glimpse of the Gospel?

In this instance, I was the Pharisee. In my mind, when Nora refused the bottle, I thought “No, no, no. That's the rule (Law). You must take the exchange whether you want it or not.” Conversely, Joshua displayed grace by offering to take what Nora deserved and bestow upon her his own prize, a prize she did not earn. However, it was up to Nora to accept Joshua’s offer if she was to rid herself of the Vodka and receive the gift card.

Compare this to our own eternal state. God’s Law exposes our sin and we are rightly deserving of God’s punishment. Through Grace, Jesus offers to take that punishment upon himself and pay the penalty for our sin. In exchange, he bestows upon us the reward for living a sinless life: reconciliation to God. However, this doesn’t just happen automatically. One must, through Faith, accept Jesus’ sacrifice in their heart to receive its benefits.

To be fair, the White Elephant analogy does break down a bit if you consider that Joshua received something he probably wanted anyway, the Vodka, while, on the cross, Jesus had to endure God’s wrath, something nobody wants. Nobody!  

But then again, scripture tells us that God rejoices whenever a sinner repents (Luke 15:7,10), a repentance that is perfected through Christ’s death on the cross. So, I guess Jesus did get something he wanted after all.

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Footnotes:

[1] All the names in this post have been changed, basically to protect me. Most of you don’t know who I work with and have no idea who I am talking about. Still, if my co-workers happen to read this, I don’t want them being upset with me if they didn’t want to be identified. Also, since I am writing this several days after the event, should I happen to forget or err on some of the facts, like exactly who was involved, I can easily hide those faults behind a fake name.