On the first Christmas of our married life, I bought my wife, Jane, a dress. I just knew she would like the dress. I had seen her wear dresses before, so I went to the store, and I picked this particular dress out all by myself using only the fashion, taste, and judgment I had acquired from growing up in Nashville, Tennessee. I gave it to Jane, and I watched her unwrap it. I’ll never forget her response. She said, “Honey, this looks just like something your mother would wear.” It took me approximately 10 years or so to realize that wasn’t exactly a compliment.
I raise this issue because there is a question I’ve been thinking about. What should we get God for the holidays? Christmas is when many celebrate God’s greatest gift to the world: the gift of his Son, Jesus. When you love somebody, you want to give to them, correct? We love God, so what should we give God? We need to start by figuring out what God might want. If you want to find out what God wants, Scripture is a great place to look.
The Bible is all about life with God as a reality here on earth, focused on the person of Jesus. Over and over in the Bible, God tells the human race what he really wants:
Isaiah 61:8: “For I, the Lord, love justice . . . ”
In the Psalms, it says, “For the Lord loves justice . . .”
He gets called, “Might King, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice . . .”
At the very beginning of the Bible, when Moses is giving the people instructions, God says to him, “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality . . . Follow justice and justice alone . . .”
All through the Bible, hundreds of times, the word “justice” gets lifted up as something precious to God. What does God want? God wants justice.
That leads me to the next question. What is justice? What exactly does the Bible mean by justice? For me, this is really important. One of the most famous passages in the Old Testament is from the prophet Micah: “. . . what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love (mercy), and to walk humbly (before) your God?”
These are not three separate things. What is interesting is that they’re all connected with each other.
One of the best books about biblical justice I know was written by a great Christian thinker (a philosopher) at Yale by the name of Nicholas Wolterstorff, simply titled, Justice. Wolterstorff says the fundamental principle of biblical justice is that you should never treat a human being as if they have less worth than they have. In fact, this is kind of core to justice. You should never treat anything as if it has less worth than it does. Justice means recognizing and honoring the excellence of all God has made.
He says, “Good things, even things that excel in goodness, are all about us. There are excellent sunsets, excellent football games . . . excellent prayers, excellent meals, excellent automobiles, excellent musical works . . . excellent specimens of the dachshund . . .”
Justice begins with seeing, and prizing, and nurturing, and honoring the excellent worth of the God who created everything and then prizing the excellent worth of his creation. God says what he values above all else in his creation is human beings—people. How about it . . . what are you going to give God this Christmas?
Bill Crofton
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