The Greatest Gift
We often speak about gifts, especially in seasons of celebration, but Scripture invites us to ask a deeper question:
What do we give to the One who has given us everything?
I recently wrote a poem that opens with that very question:
“O Source of all that’s good and true, what offering can I bring
For him, the Gift of gifts, your Son – eternal, reigning King?”
This is the posture of true worship. We come before God not with assumptions, but with humility. We quickly realize that nothing we offer originates with us. Every good and perfect gift comes from him. And yet, God did not demand…God gave.
“Not made but born, not forced but sent, my proxy and my peace.”
Jesus was not created; he was incarnated. He was not coerced but willingly sent. He came as our representative…our substitute…and our peace. Paul tells us in Philippians 2 that Jesus “made himself nothing,” stooping from unimaginable heights to rescue souls like yours and mine. This stooping down…this great emptying of himself is the beginning of the Greatest Gift.
And so, the next movement of the poem draws us deeper into the mystery of divine love:
“His love exceeds all finite thought, his emptying unknown.”
We can explain doctrines, but we cannot exhaust his love. The incarnation is not simply a theological concept…it is a wonder. The King leaving his throne, not to merely visit the lost, but to claim them as his own.
“To raise the earthbound sons of men where only God may go.”
This is the miracle of grace: not only forgiveness, but elevation. In Jesus, we are lifted up, adopted, seated with him, welcomed into the presence of God. He did not only come down to us; he brings us up with him.
Then the poem turns deeply personal:
“When I could not ascend to him, he came on wings of grace.”
This is the gospel in one line. We could not climb our way up to God…no ladder of morality or effort would reach him. So he came to us.
“He met me in the ash and rust and gently kissed my face.”
This paints a picture of divine tenderness. God does not recoil from our brokenness…ash and rust being the consequences of destruction and decay…God doesn’t recoil from our brokenness. He meets us there in the mess of it all. Where deity and dust…where divinity and humanity were once divided, Jesus bound the breach…he is fully God and fully man…reconciling heaven and earth in his own Person.
The final verse leads us to the cross:
“No wit of mine, no will defined can seek the path once trod.”
You see, salvation is not discovered by intelligence or discipline…it is revealed in a Person.
“Yet Wisdom came in infant form, the saving Lamb of God.”
The cradle always pointed to the cross. He bore our sin, he carried our guilt, he shed his blood, and clothed us in a righteousness we could never earn. The Greatest Gift was not only given…it was given for you.
And so we end where Scripture itself leads us, echoing the ancient proclamation of Isaiah:
“For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given,
The weight of all the world he bears, the King of earth and heaven.
He is the great and mighty God, our hope that will not cease,
He reigns with truth and righteousness, our everlasting Peace.”
This is the gift beyond all gifts…Jesus Christ, given, not taken; received, not earned.
May our appropriate response be worship, gratitude, and lives surrendered to the One who gave us everything.
O Source of all that’s good and true, what offering can I bring
For him, the Gift of gifts, your Son – eternal, reigning King?
Not made but born, not forced but sent, my proxy and my peace,
He stooped from heights unsearchable to grant my soul release.
His love exceeds all finite thought, his emptying unknown,
He left his throne to lift the lost and claim us as his own.
The Wonder of all wonders this: that he should come so low,
To raise the earthbound sons of men where only God may go.
When I could not ascend to him, he came on wings of grace,
He met me in the ash and rust and gently kissed my face.
When deity and dust were worlds apart, estranged, confined,
He bound the breach in perfect bond – divine and flesh entwined.
No wit of mine, no will defined, can seek the path once trod,
Yet Wisdom came in infant form, the saving Lamb of God.
He wore my sin, he bore my guilt, he bled to make me whole,
And wrought for me a righteousness that saved my shrivelled soul.
Chorus:
For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given,
The weight of all the world he bears, the King of earth and heaven.
He is the great and mighty God, our hope that will not cease,
He reigns with truth and righteousness, our everlasting Peace.
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2025
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