GIFT WRAP
Some packages are wrapped
In tinsel and green
And plaid or stripes in red and gold
Are often seen,
But the greatest gift at Christmas
Came so warmly wrapped
In flesh, human flesh, like a Baby,
When He napped.
2
Wrappings serve for weeks
Or for a few hours,
To hid the gift from brown and blue eyes
And their prying powers.
The Father’s Gift was with Him
Before He was born,
Yet He stayed wrapped thirty-three years
From that fine morn.
3
Paper, be it as pretty
As paper might,
Is not as valuable as what it hides
From other’s sight.
So it was with God’s Present:
Covered with mortal flesh.
The inside was of more value
Than skin, so fresh.
4
Paper is torn, left,
Forgotten in haste,
Considered, by the receiver,
As nothing but dull waste.
Unfortunately, God’s Christmas Gift
Also was torn;
That fleshly wrapping
Felt the point of nail and thorn.
5
Gifts wear out in months,
Or decades, at least;
Rust, decay, or some other harm –
From germ to mighty beast.
But God’s gift, old by centuries, Is still very new,
And though the Wrap was torn,
The Giver always knew,
6
His Present would lift,
Allow the Great Shift,
For all lives adrift.
What a wondrous Gift!
God and Man inside –
Man and God without
Is it any wonder
Angels did shout?
– eab, DEC. ’90
Separate-Holy 