December 18
Gift list
Matthew 2:11
And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
One of the big activities of Christmas is gift giving. The gift-giving activities keep expanding as Christmas gift-giving is more and more fueled by marketing and other commercial activity. In fact, the biggest winners at Christmas are retailers who rake in billions by ensure that consumers buy everything for the Holidays.
The United States of America is, of course, the leader here. According to the National Retail Federation (in the USA), holiday spending is expected to reach $957.3 billion to $966.6 billion in 2023, 3% to 4% more than in 2022 — the smallest annual increase since 2018 to 2019.
A lot of the purchases are, as expected, driven by the purchase of gifts for children who have been persuaded somehow that Christmas is the time to receive gifts, both the ones you ask for and the ones that surprise you. For this reason, a significant amount of marketing energy is directed at the children segment to persuade children to pressure parents, and to pressure parents into thinking that they have to do this.
Those from the “Keep Christ in Christmas” and “Jesus is the reason for the Season” camps like to tell us that Christmas gift-giving is derived from the presentation of the gifts by the three wise men to the infant Jesus. But we know that that isn’t really true. Christmastide gift-giving comes from multiple sources and influences of which the wise men might be one.
In ancient Rome for example, the record suggests that gift-giving might have been practiced around the winter solstice in December which was celebrated during the Saturnalia holiday. A holiday that was either on December 17 or December 23 based on which calendar was used to determine the day. Then there is the story of Saint Nicholas (who morphed into Santa Claus), a fourth-century Christian bishop and gift-giver, whose actions gradually became a part of Christmas celebrations. And there is the story of the Good King Wenceslas story based on the life of another historical figure reputed to be a gift-giver, Saint Wenceslaus.
The story of three wise men and their gifts persists in the effort to make the festivities of Christmas a Christian thing. However, if we pay close attention to the wise men we would still have the gifts but we might come to completely different conclusions about the festivities. If nothing else, we might put together our gift lists with a lot more prayerful thought.
So, let’s go back to the Bible story, it’s about two years since the actual birth of Jesus Christ, Jesus the toddler is at home with his parents in Bethlehem, and the wise men from the East show up in Jerusalem. Our stargazers, looking into the night sky for general direction, land in the city and start asking people in the city if they had any information about the location of the Child-king.
As with any small city, word gets around and eventually gets to the short-tempered and constantly suspicious and insecure king. He helps though by asking the Jewish leaders and scholars to give some insight into the prophecy about the Messiah who was expected to be born. That information, as we say yesterday, leads to stargazers on a further trail to Betlehem.
Of course, they set off a set of reactions and actions that in the end required that they escape Judea back to the East and that Joseph, Mary, and the child escape to the west, Egypt. But before all of this hightailing out of Bethlehem, there was this matter of gifts. You see, as we know, they didn’t come empty handed.
The wise men, brought gifts, three gifts. This might be a good time to note that we were never told in the Bible that there were three wise men, we were told that there were three gifts, and we then concluded one man per gift and got three men. But let us concern ourselves with what was on their gift list. Careful examination would suggest that the gifts were completely relevant to the Child, and that the wise men understood who He was and what His purpose was in choosing what to bring on this wandering journey.
The wise men’s gift list left no room for mindless festivity and frolic. The gifts pointed directly to identity, call, and purpose. “And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” Matthew 2:11. It might not be certain that the gifts listed in the order that they have been, necessarily suggests an order in which they ought to be considered. But let’s keep the order.
Jesus was born King, “… and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” Luke 1:32-33. And so he was, by the gifts of gold, recognised as King to honoured.
Jesus was born the only begotten Son of God, “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest” Luke 1:32-33. Jesus, as the Son of God, is to be worshiped. And so He was, by the gifts of frankincense, recognised as Lord to be worshipped.
Jesus was born to die, “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21. And so He was, by the gifts of myrrh, the ointment of death, identified as the One who was to die for our sins on the cross.
Think on these things:
- How much thought have you put into your gift lists?
- What’s on your gift list – what are the things that you want people to get for you?
- What’s on your gift list – what are the things that you want to get for specific people as a way of showing what God is doing in their lives?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would use this season to reflect on who Jesus is, what He has done for us, and how we could give our faith as a gift to others.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex