The Magi—The Great Gifts: Isaiah 60: 1-6; Matthew 2: 1-12
This morning I want to tell you the story of simple gifts, yet great gifts given at Christmas which changed lives and made hope real instead of merely a wish for a couple of children. A married couple, who are friends of mine, decided a few years ago to become foster parents. They figured that they were pretty good with kids, so how hard could it be? After all, most of the work was respite or short-term care. But one year, they got a call at night, and specifically a night or two just before Christmas.
Could they take a couple of young children? Could they provide care and watch them for awhile? My friends assumed this would be fine. But as the two young children were dropped off, they learned the hard truth. The parents of these two kids were in jail. It was not certain what the kids had endured, and worst of all, there was no other family coming to take care of them. The kids were now in the home of strangers just days before Christmas with almost nothing to their name.
My friends’ family wasted no time and sprang into action. They bought and scrounged up extra clothes for the kids, ran out at the last minute and picked up some of the remaining toys to wrap for the children, and threw in a little extra food for the Christmas dinner. The children ended up having a fantastic Christmas with great gifts and lots of attention from their borrowed family. And as for my friends, I could not be more proud of how they’ve handled the situation. But there was a moment of sadness right at the end of Christmas when the little girl looked at the gifts and said, “Do we have to give them back now, or can we keep them?”
As we celebrated Christmas this week, I sometimes worry that we’ve made the act of gift-giving cold, institutionalized, commercialized or, even worse, a burdensome requirement for the holiday. Christmas is, at its core, about gifts. Epiphany, though in recent years has focused more on the light of Christ, is also about gifts. Even if you go back years ago to movies and shows from the 1930s and 1940s when times were hard, money and provisions scarce, you still see the people going out to the local shops, (and on Christmas Eve no less!) to buy even just small gifts for their loved ones.
For years, Christmas has been celebrated with gifts and the act of gift-giving. We read at this time about the Magi, or Wisemen, as some call them. The whole climax of their story is giving their gifts the the infant Christ. We tend to focus on the actual gifts and their meaning: gold given to Christ as King, frankincense given to Christ as the Holy One of God, and myrrh to symbolize his coming sacrifice. But also important to this giving of gifts is the context in which they came and gave gifts.
First of all was the long and difficult journey for the Wisemen. They traveled likely from Persia or around Iran and Iraq in the modern day national boundaries. Some scholars even theorize they may have been from as far away as India. The journey would have been incredibly dangerous over desert and mountain, and lasting months or more. They followed a star based on an ancient prophecy from their own culture. These were cultured, powerful noblemen who had status in their own country to afford such expensive and extravagant gifts for a child they knew nothing much about and had no idea what to expect.
That’s why they first came to Herod. They expected a new-born king to be in a palace. But Christ was not in a palace. Christ was not haunting the halls of the rich. Instead they found him living likely in a small rented room in Bethlehem—a poor child, a humble child. To the poor, the meek, they brought their expensive gifts and humbly knelt before him as king, as God, and as sacrifice.
It was all part of God’s plan. You see gifts are given for a reason—usually because we need whatever the gift is. Jesus and his family would need these gifts. What happened following the Magi’s visit was a devastating tragedy. In his rage at the challenge to his throne, Herod ordered all boys under age two be executed. To escape, Jesus went from poor and humble to refugee status. His family escaped to Egypt where they lived in refuge outside of Herod’s terror-filled reign until Herod died. Though the Bible doesn’t say this directly, I’m sure the gold allowed the family to live safely in Egypt until they could get back to Nazareth, and likely the frankincense allowed them to continue to offer their prayers and faith to God. Those gifts came with both symbolic and practical meanings.
But then we come to the final gift: myrrh. The myrrh would have been used years later when Christ became the greatest gift to the world on the cross, the gift being himself. You see very often at Christmas we start out by asking what one another needs as a gift. This year I told mom I needed new pillows, socks, and a watch. She laughed and said, “Well those aren’t very fun gifts.” After thinking about it, I’ve learned that I’m at the point in life that I ask for what I need more than what I want at Christmas.
The greatest gift that we need at Christmas time and always is Christ. The world needed Christ. He may not be what the world wanted, what the world expected, but he is exactly what the world needed.. And every day as I watch this world I realize we need him more and more. Even those of us who have followed carefully for years in the walk of faith, as trials get tougher and shadows darker, we need this gift of Christ—his strength, his love, and his peace more and more.
This Christmas may have been tough for a number of us: we continue to struggle with the loss of loved ones; we have families that are creatively dramatic; or we may have something as simple as a stomach virus causing a really nasty Christmas. But Christ has given us the gifts which can guide us and help us. As the hymn says to us—“I gave my life for thee; what has thou given for me?” For two children this Christmas, one family gave them love, comfort, and happiness beyond anything they could hope for being pulled into foster care.
For us, Christ has given us himself to be with us, to give us love and forgiveness. Just like the little girl at the end of Christmas asked, so too do many people wonder about Christ’s gift, “What do I do with it…is it mine, or do I have to give it back?” That is a simple answer. You must share it, but no, you do not have to give it back, for nothing can separate us from the love of God.