Text: Matthew 2:1-12
Theme: You have a very important gift to share with humanity.
The Gifts
I am wondering how many of you got very practical gifts for
Christmas this year. How many of you got something you can really use?
Were you excited to get this gift?
During this conversation three magi enter the sanctuary. “We are
here, we made it. We followed the star to this place. We are looking for a
newborn king.”
Pastor: This is terrific that you made it. We are so glad you are
here but you realize it has been awhile. The Christmas star first shown
in the sky almost two years ago. The baby Jesus isn’t a new born he is a
toddler now. This was his baby’s bed but as he can see, he is out and
toddling around. Look around and you will find him along with his
mother and father, maybe out in the courtyard”.
Magi 1: “We will do that but I think we will leave his gifts here,
near his baby bed. I have brought him frankinsence. He is really going to
need this gift”. Magi 2: “I have brought him myrrh and he is really going
to need it”. Magi 3: “I have brought him gold and he is really going to
need it”.
Pastor: “Gosh, that’s great. Just leave them here and then look out in the
courtyard, surely you will run into the young family”.
So, that was a nice surprise. One doesn’t often get to see real magi
on Epiphany Sunday. It is Epiphany Sunday; Epiphany is on Tuesday,
January 6th. It is the twelfth day of Christmas. In some cultures it is
called The Three Kings Day and this day rather than Christmas Day is the
day of gift giving. It is thought that in the Eastern Church, Epiphany
became a celebration before Christmas did. While the Shepherds came
on Christmas Eve, the magi didn’t arrive until almost two years later.
I said last week that even at Jesus’ birth, his following was
unusual. His followers were not high priests and Jewish royalty they
were shepherds and today the magi. These magi were high-ranking
political and religious advisors to the rulers of the land we know as Iran
and Iraq. Nation we have spent centuries trying to decide if they are
friend or foe. It wasn’t so different in Jesus’ time and yet they were the
ones that came bringing gifts.
In the Middle Ages it was thought that all stories in the Bible were
allegorical and that objects in Bible stories were simply symbols. Of
course someone brought Jesus gold, that was the kind of gift you gave a
king if you were the kind of person that gave kings gifts. The burial
perfume and incense a foreshadowing, symbols of what would happen
to Jesus. But what if these gifts were practical and functional? What if
these gifts helped to keep Jesus alive?
So often when we go to the manger we imagine an airtight cozy
little barn that may have smelled of cattle but was better than a tent,
better than camping in the north woods. We add a lamp or a cooking fire
and in our imaginations we make Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus
comfortable. We imagine maybe it wasn’t so bad. We forget that they
were refugees for two years. We forget that the Magi inadvertently
alerted Herod to the arrival of a Jewish King and that in Herod’s fear, his
determination not be superseded he killed all the baby Jewish boys two
and under in Jerusalem. It was called the slaughter of the innocents and
twenty-something baby boys were believed to have died.
The magi found this young family, yearning for safety and brought
gifts. What if the gold was used for buying safe passage out of Jerusalem
when so many boy babies were killed? “What better than medicinal and
funeral herbs to be exchanged for food at a market on the way to
Egypt?” (Nancy Rockwell) Maybe with these gifts Jesus, Mary and Joseph
had just enough to survive as refugees. Maybe, when they heard that
Herod had died they still had a gold coin or two, which made the
journey, home possible. What if these gifts given were not symbols but
the very essence of what Jesus needed to survive, to find his way home,
to learn and to grow so that thirty years later he could emerge as Jesus
the Christ.
What if each of us has a gift just as essential that needs to be given
in Jesus’ name. Those of us from Wisconsin and Minnesota struggle with
this idea. As Garrison Keillor says in his Lake Woebegone stories, “we
don’t want to be getting the big head”. And yet for Jesus’ sake, for the
sake of humanity we need to honor our worth, to believe we do have
something valuable Jesus needs us to give, in his name, to the families
and community around us.
Did anyone see the IKEA commercial that was going around the
Internet? We have a small house and we have benefitted from IKEA
products. We love the functionality, the practicality, the multi-purposing
that IKEA is known for. They also make really good chocolate. You have
to love a furniture store that makes really good chocolate.
In the commercial they invited children into a lovely little work
space and gave them crayons, markers and paper and told them to write
a letter to the three kings. As American children write letters to Santa
Claus, these children write letters to the Three Kings. The children
wrote things like, “I want a Wii. I want an iPad. I want a video game”.
The culture might be different but these were our children. Then the
IKEA folks had them put their letters to three kings in one box and they
had them write another letter. This time the letter was to the parents.
They said, “Tell your parents what you really want”. The children caught
the subtle difference in the question and they paused before they
started writing and drawing and making pictures but they did. They put
those letters in another box. Then the IKEA staff people said, “Now
choose. If you could only send one letter, which letter would you send?”
Shyly, cautiously the children chose the letter they had written to their
parents. The children were ushered out of the workroom and the
parents were invited into a functional yet stylish living area and invited
to open the letters to them. The children wrote, “I would like to spend
the whole day having fun with my parents”. “I would like for our family
to eat supper together every night”. “I would like for my mom to play
soccer with me more often”. The mom laughed at that. She said
something like, “I’m no good at soccer”. The children wanted something
more valuable than presents. They were willing to forgo presents for
something that was as essential to them as the very practical gifts of
gold, frankincense and myrrh.
From the children we learn that we all do have something that
valuable, that important that the people around us need. Jesus asks us to
give it in his name.
We had new volunteers for the Friday Meal on Friday. The
volunteers said, “We just wanted to give”. Intrinsically they know there
is something so valuable inside of them that the world needs it. They
said, and Shirley and I said, “We are so glad you were able to give here,
at St. Mark’s. We needed you.
Christmas may be over. It will probably feel good to get back to a
regular schedule tomorrow with children in school and regular work
days without a holiday. But there remains in each of us, gifts, essential to
the ministry of Jesus Christ. He asks us to give these gifts, these parts of
ourselves in his name. In a way, it is essential to the safe passage of our
church into a brighter future. When we give of ourselves we, like the
Magi find our way home.