The Characters of Christmas: The Wise (?) Men
Matthew 2:1-12
We come to close our series on The Characters of Christmas today with a look at the most misunderstood, or at least most misinterpreted, cast of characters in the entire Christmas story. Like Buddy the Elf walking around New York City, they just look out of place. I mean, here are what some have called “royalty” making their way to bow down before a baby. Of course, we are speaking today of the wise men. Some have called them kings, but that comes more from tradition than what we actually know of the wise men. It’s appropriate that we should reflect upon the wise men today because this is Epiphany Sunday, the Sunday of the Christian year when we acknowledge the “revealing” of the Christ. Tomorrow is the 12th day of Christmas, and Epiphany is traditionally accepted as the time the “wise men” came to visit baby Jesus.
Someone asked the question: What if they had been wise women instead of wise men? The answer?
• They would have stopped and asked for directions so they would have arrived on time.
• They would have helped deliver the baby.
• They would have taken the time to clean the stable.
• They would have prepared a casserole.
• And, they would have brought cute little outfits for the baby Jesus to wear home.
What we know of the wise men we learn primarily from tradition. Tradition tells us there were three, and legend in the western church give them names: Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar. We really don’t know their names. We don’t know how many there were. We don’t know where they were from, and we don’t know how long the journey took. I guarantee it took more than a night. These wise men mysteriously show up, and just as mysteriously, they’re gone. What we know of them we learn in Matthew’s gospel. I think Matthew’s introduction of this cast of characters to the Christmas story can be instructive as we seek to live faithful lives.
What we do know about the “wise men” is they came bearing gifts. We might not learn much else, but we can learn about the gifts—gold, frankincense and myrrh. Matthew tells us that much, and if Matthew thought it important, perhaps we should, too. It is from this cast of characters that we get our tradition of gift giving at the Christmas season. We’re all about gift-giving.
We all practice gift-giving, and there are different gifts and different ways those gifts are given. First, there’s the gift for a gift, gift. You get me a gift, so I need to get you a gift, too. Christmas cards are the same way. I write an annual letter—we call it The Malone Christmas Annual—that we send in lieu of Christmas cards. I was late getting the letter written this year, and there were a few people who didn’t receive it until Christmas Eve eve, and wouldn’t you know it, a couple of days after Christmas I get a few Christmas cards in my mail box, and they have December 24th postmarked on the envelope. Now, I’m a pretty smart guy, and I think I’ve figured out those folks were sending us a Christmas card because they received our letter. It’s one of those gift for a gift, gift things, and it’s all about keeping score. That’s okay! It fuels the economy, and any politician can tell you, “It’s the economy, stupid!”
Next, there’s the gift for a favor gift. That’s all about spreading around IOU’s. Companies give Christmas bonuses or turkeys or hams. My Thanksgiving turkey came from Brookshire’s this year. My son got it “free” because he spent $400 on other groceries. This is the gift for a favor gift. We expect something in return, just not necessarily a gift. This, too, is about keeping score, and it also fuels the economy.
Then, there is the grace gift. This was the gift the wise men brought to Jesus. The grace gift can’t be repaid because it can’t be earned. The grace gift is a gift of love, like Mom cooking too much on Christmas, or a hand-made card from a child. I find it ironic that the wise men brought gifts to He who was the gift himself. Jesus was God’s grace gift to us that first Christmas, and as cousin Eddie would say on Christmas Vacation concerning the Jelly of the Month Club, “it’s the gift that keeps on giving.” God’s grace gift in His Son, Jesus is a gift of His salvation to all who believe, and he gives himself over and over through His Holy Spirit to all who ask.
The grace gift is distinctive in several ways. First, the cost of a grace gift can’t be measured. The greatest gift can be utterly worthless, but there’s no amount of money in the world that can buy it. You can’t put a price on a grace gift. Our own Galen Husser gave a gift just before the holidays that can’t be measured. He offered his stem cells for a stem cell transplant for a patient in Europe. Galen made at least two trips to San Diego, took time away from his job and some away from the family to offer this gift. He endured some discomfort through the process, but his gift is priceless to the person who received the stem cells. That’s a grace gift. We may measure the cost of the materials that go into the gift, but we can’t measure the love or the sacrifice or the commitment. True enough, the wise men brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and all three could be measured in the physical sense, but what couldn’t be measured was the worship and adoration and glory that lay behind the giving of the gift. Those were the most precious gifts imaginable, and they were the gifts the wise men brought to Jesus.
Second, grace gifts are usually non-material in nature. Christmas has taught us nothing else if not how to run down to the department store or the mall to express our love and gratitude. Too often, we measure love by the size of the gift we receive. Too often, we count our love toward someone in terms of the cost of the gift we give. Maybe our practice of spending lots of money on others is a means of assuaging our guilt for not having spent enough time with them. How about extending a grace gift of togetherness?
Or, how about a gift of service? How about doing something for someone who is not your family. I have a friend, Richard, who is quite the mechanic. Richard took it as his personal ministry to keep my daughter’s cars running while I was his pastor. If one of them had an accident (and one of them was quite accident prone), Richard was there to fix it. Never charged me for anything but parts. That’s what I call a grace gift.
The Aldersgate Sunday School class here at FUMC gave me a wonderful grace gift this Christmas. They gave a gift to the Methodist Children’s Home in my honor. That was a tremendous grace gift. Sure it can be quantified, but what lies behind it can’t be…it’s priceless! That’s what grace gifts are supposed to be. That’s God’s gift to us. It ought to be our gift to others.
There are a few things I learn from the wise men gifts, and I want to briefly mention them. First, I learn that I should give gifts unexpectedly. These “wise men” were foreigners, most likely Gentiles from Persia. No one would ever expect them to give gifts to a Jewish king, or to worship him. A grace gift comes at the most unexpected times and in the most unexpected ways.
Second, I learn that I should give joyfully. Matthew tells us in verse 10 that the wise men were “filled with joy” as they made their way to Bethlehem (or wherever the child was). Gift giving ought to fill us with joy, but too often, we turn into Scrooge at Christmas (guilty here!).
Third, I learn that grace gifts should be personal—something some thought has gone into. What could a king use? Well, every king needs a little gold. And frankincense and myrrh, well, because the resin from both were used by so many ancient cultures, some scholars say the two resins were probably at their height of value around the time of Jesus' birth. Many estimate that at that time, translated into modern money, frankincense would have cost $500 per pound. Myrrh would have cost $4,000 per pound. Certainly gifts fit for a king. One of the best gifts I ever received was a gift certificate to a grocery store. That doesn’t sound very personal, you say, but if you knew how much I like to eat, you’d know it was very personal.
Fourth, I learn that grace gifts should be gifts that last. Many of the gifts we give wear out. Many of the gifts we give our children are worn out before the day is ended. Gifts that last are the gift of memories and the gift of a heritage. Mama Kit was what we called my grandmother. One of the cherished gifts she left me was the gift of rocks. Rocks are cookies she only made at Christmas and it’s not the cookies that are special, it’s the memory of her making them. You see, every Christmas, she’d sneak out and buy a pint of Old Charter Whiskey to mix in the rocks. You’d have to know my grandmother to appreciate the image of this sweet little old lady slipping into the K & B Drug Store to buy that whiskey. I’ll never forget that image. I’ll never forget those cookies!
The final lesson I learn is that the best gift I can give is the gift of myself. The wise men gave themselves in worship and adoration to Jesus. We give ourselves to Christ in worship. It is our greatest gift, and we give ourselves to others in love and service. As author Albert Pine wrote, “What we do for ourselves dies with us, but what we do for others, and for the world remains, and it is immortal.” Sounds pretty good to me.
Christmas. Epiphany. Life. All is grace! All is gift! It’s all about the gift. What gift can we give?
