Every year at Christmas, children write their letters to Santa hoping that he will bring them what they want for Christmas. Some ask for Barbies while others ask for a firetruck or the newest Lego kit. Others desire big things like peace on earth while others ask for the very basics and necessities for life. We know that the only way for these wishes to be fulfilled is if parents or caregivers purchase the gifts, wrap them and put them under the tree.

As a parent and grandparent, when I ask my family, “What do you want for Christmas”, I get excited because I love to fulfil these lists for my children and grandchildren. But when they ask me the same question, I find it difficult to answer…

Christmas is a reminder of God’s gift to us. Jesus came into the world to give His life for us. His death and resurrection provided us with forgiveness and reconciliation from and to God. Christmas is a reminder that His actions give us reasons for joy, hope and love even in the midst of a worldwide pandemic.

But have you ever wondered what Jesus might want for Christmas? One of the difficult things when shopping at Christmas is we often struggle with what to get someone who has everything. What would the Son of God want for Christmas?

To find the answer, we need to look at what He prayed for; his longest prayer in John 17. The climax of His desire is in verse 24 which says, “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” Among all the undeserving sinners in the world, there are those whom God has “given to Jesus.” These are those whom God has drawn to the Son.

These are Christians, people who have “received” Jesus as the crucified and risen Savior and Lord and made Him the Treasure of their lives. Jesus says He wants them to be with Him.

Sometimes we hear people say that God created us because He was lonely. They say, “God created us so that we would be with Him.” Does Jesus agree with this? Well, He does say that He really wants us to be with Him! But the question might be, why? Consider the rest of the verse. Why does Jesus want us to be with him? “… to see my glory that you [Father] have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” I am not sure about you, but that would be a strange way to express loneliness.

Jesus says, “I want them with me so they can see my glory.” There is no loneliness expressed here rather it expresses Jesus’ concern for the satisfaction of our longing, not His loneliness. Jesus is not lonely. He and the Father and the Spirit are profoundly satisfied in the fellowship of the Trinity. We, not He, are starving for something. And what Jesus wants for Christmas is for us to experience what we were really made for, seeing and savouring His glory.

That is what my wish would be this Christmas, I pray that God would make this sink into our souls! According to John 1:3, Jesus made us see His glory. Just before Jesus is crucified, He pleads His deepest desires with the Father: “Father, I desire that they… may be with me where I am, to see my glory.”

But that is only half of what Jesus wants in these final verses of His prayer. I just said we were really made for seeing and savouring His glory. Is that what He wants for us, that we not only see His glory but savour it, relish it, delight in it, treasure it, and love it?

Consider verse 26, the very last verse of this prayer. Jesus says, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” That is the end of the prayer. What is Jesus’s final goal for us? Not that we simply see His glory, but that we love Him with the same love that the Father has for Him, “that the love with which you [Father] have loved me may be in them.”

Jesus’s longing and goal are that we see His glory and then that we are able to love what we see with the same love that the Father has for the Son. And He does not mean that we merely imitate the love of the Father for the Son. He means the Father’s very love becomes our love for the Son. We love Jesus with the love of the Father for the Son.

This is what the Spirit becomes and bestows in our lives, love for the Son by the Father through the Spirit. What Jesus wants most for Christmas is that His children be gathered in and then get what they want most, to see His glory and then savour and enjoy it the same way the Father loves His Son.

What I want most for Christmas this year is to join you, and many others, in seeing Christ in all His fullness and that we together are able to love what we see with a love far beyond our own half-hearted human capacities. This is the goal of Advent, to prepare ourselves for Christ by appreciating all He is and all He has done on our behalf.

My desire is for us, together, to see and savour this Jesus whose first “advent” (coming) we celebrate, and whose second advent we anticipate. This is what Jesus prays for us this Christmas, “Father, show them my glory and give them the very delight in me that you have in me.”

May we see Christ with the eyes of God and savour Christ with the heart of God. That is the essence of heaven. That is the gift Christ came to purchase for sinners at the cost of His death in our place.