They Came Bearing Gifts

Rev. Walter M. Bosman Jr. ©2005

Happy New Year! Today is Epiphany Sunday. This is the day that we celebrate the revelation of Jesus Christ as Lord to us Gentiles.

One of the most popular images on our Christmas cards, Nativity scenes and Christmas plays is the one where the angels, animals, shepherds and the three Magi are gathered around the manger looking down at the newborn King of Kings. Actually, the Magi don’t really belong there in our manger scenes. They arrived quite a while after Jesus’ birth.

In our Scripture reading this morning, we find that the Magi find Jesus and His mother Mary, not in a stable, but in a “house”. We also see that Jesus is no longer referred to as a baby. Rather, He is called what we would term a “toddler”. Most likely, Jesus is between one and two years old. For Herod, in attempting to destroy this child Jesus in order to remove Him as a threat to Herod’s position as King, has all the children under two years old slaughtered. Herod picked that age group “according to the time the Magi told him of the appearance of Jesus’ star in the East.”

Let’s focus on the Magi for a bit this morning. Now, there are many things we do not know about these men. For instance,

We don’t know how many there were (notwithstanding the tradition of there being three).
We don’t know their names.
We don’t know exactly where they came from (although somewhere in modern day Iraq and Iran are most probably the areas).

We do know, however, that they are very powerful, learned men, although most certainly not “kings” as the song we will sing in a few moments indicates. We also know that the Magi were of a sect of men who where very important advisors to the kings of Eastern countries at that time. They were very knowledgeable in the field of astronomy and the religions of the world and used that knowledge to advise their kings, much like Daniel advised the kings he served in Babylon.

Other than these few facts, Matthew doesn’t give us many more details concerning these visitors from the East. However, Matthew does tell us that the Magi came bearing very special gifts for the newborn King. Matthew says,

“They went into the house, and when they saw the child with His mother Mary, they knelt down and worshipped Him. They brought out their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and presented them to Him.” Notice that these very powerful men did not give Jesus their gifts until after they had worshipped Him. (By the way, although the translation here says that the Magi “knelt down and worshipped Him”, the word translated as “knelt down” actually means to “fall prostrate”.)

So here we have men who are considered to be some of the most influential, powerful men in the world at that time, falling prostrate at the feet of a little child in order to give that child the worship He deserved. It is after that act of worship that the Magi present their gifts to Jesus. Gold, frankincense and myrrh! What’s up with that? Seems like very strange gifts to give a young child to me. I would have probably given the child “sensible” gifts like baby food, diapers, maybe a nice crib to play in. But these guys give a child gold and two types of perfume. (Well, maybe the perfume was actually handy at changing times.)

More seriously, many believe that the gold, frankincense and myrrh represent the “tools of the trade” of the Magi. So in giving these items to Jesus, the Magi were in effect demonstrating that they no longer were going to practice their wizardry and magic. They were letting the past go because they had found the true Guiding Star, Jesus Christ.

Many other scholars believe that the gifts symbolize just who this baby Jesus was. They reason:

Gold represents power and wealth. It is a gift for a king. This child Jesus is a King.
Frankincense was used in services worshipping God. This child Jesus was God come down to earth.
Myrrh was used to embalm the dead. This child Jesus would one day suffer, die and defeat death itself as the Savior of mankind.

I believe that the gifts represent both of these theories and possibly more. Whether they do or not, think about it. What do you bring as a gift to the One who is the all-powerful God? After all, He is God who controls the heavens to such an extent that an extremely bright “star” travels through the sky, day and night and stops over the exact house where Jesus and His earthly parents live.

I mean really, when the Almighty Creator of the universe comes down to earth, out of His unbounded love for us, as one of us, in the flesh; a baby who comes down to do battle with all of the evil forces Satan can muster against Him. He has come to live His life, knowing all the while that the cross of Calvary’s hill awaits Him, as well as having come to suffer and die for every person who will accept Him as their very own personal Savior. Just what do you give Him as a gift? If we truly consider the incredible greatness of the gift we have been given in Jesus Christ, what can we give in return?

The Magi, with their very expensive gifts, must have realized that those presents, as great as they were, were still inadequate for the Christ Child, the fully-human, fully-God, young boy standing at His mother’s side. Perhaps that is exactly the point of the story. We too, like the Magi, are blown away by the awesomeness of God’s love toward us, a love so great that it led Him to become a flesh and blood baby. When we think on that fact, we fall to our knees and search our purses and wallets for a gift worthy of the one He gave us, or at least we should do that. What do we have to give in return? Jesus’ gift to us is just too wondrous, too great, too awesome for us to find anything worthy enough to return to Him. What can we give in return?

All we can do, like those Magi from the East, is hand Him the best we can offer, a bag of gold, expensive perfumes, knowing all the while that these gifts, the best we have, still fall as far short of the gift that He has given us as the earth is from the end of the universe, and then some.

Perhaps that is the way it always is with our gifts to God. Even the gifts we offer in worship: the music, praise, liturgy, church building, prayers, and offerings placed in the plates are just gold, frankincense and myrrh. Yet all we can do is offer the best we have at the moment. The Magi knew they were in the presence of God, who had chosen to reveal Himself in a child. So they opened their boxes and gave Him all they had.

The best gift we can offer Jesus Christ is the gift of ourselves. See, the gold, frankincense and myrrh are quite trivial and useless to the God who created the universe. He already has all the gold, frankincense and myrrh that He would ever need. After all, He created it all with but a word of His mouth! But as useless as these gifts are to God, the gifts were a sign of how the Magi gave of themselves. Hear again the words of Scripture, “They went into the house and when they saw the child with His mother Mary, they fell prostrate and worshipped.”

Again, here are these learned, wealthy, powerful, pagan wizards of the East lying prostrate at the tiny toddler’s feet of the One True God, probably realizing, even as they paid homage to Him, that even the gift of themselves is a gift far too small for this Child, this King of Kings.

The things we give to our Lord may seem to us to be trivial and useless. (I know that my service, tithes and offerings often seem that way to me.) But if they are truly representative of the giving of ourselves to God, even knowing that it is still tiny in comparison with what He has given us, then we have given the best we can give.

Friday evening we celebrated the end of the old year and the beginning of a new year. It is a time when many people stop and look at where life is taking them. They may decide it is time to change some things. It may be seeking a new job or improving relationships.

Today is the first Sunday of 2005 and I would ask each of you to take a look at your relationship with Jesus Christ and see if there is some improvement needed. We need to take another look at our response to the God who was born in a cold, smelly stable, just for each one of us.

I am not only talking about our monetary giving, although that is indeed a part of the whole. I am asking us to look at how well we have given of ourselves to God in response to His awesome gift to us. In the past year:

How ready and often have we spent time with God in worship, prayer and reading His word, the Bible?
How ready and often have we given of our time and ourselves to those in need?
How well have we used our gifts and resources to do God’s work effectively?
How well do we show others that Jesus is indeed the Lord of our life?
Have we always given God not second best, not the leftovers, not what’s simply “good enough”, but the total amount, the very best of what we have to offer?

When the Magi left the baby Jesus, they went home by another route. We too can take a different road this year. We can take the road where Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, will be the active center of everything we do and everything we are.

The Magi came to Jesus bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. God came to us because He loves us with a love we cannot fully understand. May God’s love be reflected in everything we say, everything we do, as we worship Him with all that we have. For you see, that is our gold, frankincense and myrrh. Amen!