Mary Wrapped A Present

I love to wrap gifts. It's one of my favorite parts of the Christmas season. Just the thought of the excitement on someone's face when they open my present thrills me. I especially love to wrap gifts for my niece and nephew (though my nephew really isn't old enough to understand whats going on yet!) I just love to give gifts.
But I couldn't imagine giving my son as a gift to the world. John 3:16 tells us thats just what God did.
The song "Mary Wrapped a Present" tells the story from Mary's perspective:

Mary wrapped a present to the world,
On that first Christmas morn,
When Jesus was born,
Mary wrapped a present to the world.

When she wrapped her tiny baby in swaddling clothes in Luke 2:7, she was wrapping up a present to the entire world. I don't have children of my own, but my niece and nephew are precious to me. I couldn't imagine giving them to someone, for any reason.
But Mary knew that her child would be the Savior of the world. She knew she would have to give Him up someday. As she held Him in her arms, I wonder if she held Him a little too tightly. I wonder if she cradled Him closer.
She probably didn't know exactly how it would happen. She probably didn't even imagine that one day she'd have to see her son hang on a cross. But she knew He was not her own. And as the shepherds and wisemen came to worship her child, she shared Him with them because she knew He had come to save them all.