B, Christmas II Sunday, January 4, 2009 “The Gifts We Give”

Mt. 2:1-12 By the Rev. Blake Hutson

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight O’God our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

This is the last Sunday of the Christmas Season. In our Gospel Lesson this morning we read how the Wise Men brought gifts to Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. In that same tradition, on Christmas Day you and I gave gifts to our family, friends, and our loved ones. Think back over the last few weeks. What gifts did you give? What gifts did you receive?

Maybe you gave someone a present or two to unwrap. You may have sent Christmas cards and Christmas emails to loved ones far away. Maybe you exchanged gifts where you work. You may have called your family on the telephone on Christmas Day. In one form or another, there are a variety of ways that we may have given and may have received gifts this year.

The interesting thing about gifts is that they reveal something about us. Gifts are important because when we give something to someone in a sense you might say that we are putting our feelings into something tangible. Gifts demonstrate how we feel and what we think about the other person. They indicate we were thinking about them, that we care about them and that the person is important to us.

Now at the same time, we know that gifts are always an imperfect gauge of our feelings. With some relationships we cannot put the depth of our love or the depth of our care into something tangible. A family friend told me something important a few years ago. Knowing I was going to propose to Christina, the friend said: “don’t confuse the amount of your love or the depth of your commitment with the expense of the engagement ring you are going to buy. I worked hard and saved my money…and I bought a nice ring.

But you know, the friend was right: When giving a gift, more expense doesn’t mean more love. What is important when giving a gift is the thought, the feelings and the intentions behind the gift we give. Gifts are a sign. We put thought into our gifts because they point to our feelings.

So what gifts did you give this year? What did you say or reveal with the gifts that you gave? And on the other side of the coin, what gifts did you receive? Maybe it was cards, emails or gifts that you unwrapped, but what lengths did someone go to to show that they were thinking about you and that they care about you?

In our Gospel text, the Wise Men went to great lengths to give their gifts to Mary, Joseph and Jesus. Their gifts and what they went through to bring them to Jesus reveal their thoughts and their feelings.

Of course they could not send their gifts by UPS or FedEx. The Wise Men had to hand deliver their presents.

We don’t know a lot about these men, but they most likely came from Persia or the Babylon area. Apparently they were experts in astrology because they came to Jerusalem, following a light they had seen in the sky. After a meeting with King Herod they set out and followed the star further to Bethlehem and to the place where the family was staying. When the star stopped, they were ‘overwhelmed with joy’ because their long trip was finally over (vs. 9). They entered the house, they saw baby Jesus with his mother. The text says they knelt down out of respect and reverence. They opened their chests and they gave Jesus and Mary three gifts: gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Now ironically, these men are Gentiles. They are not of Jewish heritage. They do not have a Jewish worldview. They are not citizens of Jerusalem who have taken a short trip to Bethlehem. They are men who have traveled for many days and nights because they saw something in the sky that got their attention. They were curious, but more than that, they knew something special had happened outside Jerusalem and they had to find and see what it was.

Setting out on their journey, they could not have known what they would find. But it’s obvious; they thought they would find something. These men came prepared. They brought precious gifts with them to present to whoever had caused the event they had seen in the heavens.

If gifts reveal something about what we think and how we feel about the recipient—then we might ask about their gifts: what do their gifts reveal? Why did they bring these particular gifts?

Well, gold was a precious metal in their day, just as it is in ours. Gold was an appropriate gift for royalty. The other gifts, frankincense and myrrh were fragrant spices. They were also gifts for a monarch or a King. The significance of these fragrant spices may be lost on twenty first century readers. We have to remember that in their time, fragrances were hard to come by. These were very expensive. Clearly, the gifts they gave were very valuable. They went to a lot of trouble, traveling a long way to bring these presents.

They probably didn’t understand the full significance of the birth of this Jewish baby. But their actions and their gifts tell us that they had great reverence and great respect for the child they found. With the light they had followed in the heavens and with the interest King Herod had shown, they knew the birth of this child was of great significance.

If gifts are a sign that point to our feelings, then we can read between the lines and see that they felt that Jesus was a very special child, and that he and his family were worthy of the gifts they presented.

The gifts of the Wise Men lead us to think about the gifts we have offered to God. What gifts have you presented to the Lord? If gifts put our thoughts and our feelings into something tangible, then how have your gifts demonstrated your feelings toward God?

Gifts are always an imperfect gauge of how we feel. The depth of our love and our commitment cannot always be demonstrated with something tangible. So maybe you and I have presented, maybe we have given of our time and our abilities to serve God. Hopefully we give a combination of our time, our means and our abilities to serve God.

When you join in a ministry here at St. Philip’s you are giving of your time and your abilities to serve God and to serve other people. You and I are beginning a new year. Let me encourage you, if you haven’t given of your time or your abilities lately, make a commitment this year to do something that demonstrates your love and your commitment to God.

It’s not so much the size of the gift that’s important, but it’s the thought, the feelings, the intentions behind what we give and we do. God knows our hearts. God knows our intentions. Like the Wise Men in this story with their travels and what they went through, God notices the sacrifices we make to present the gifts we give.

Gifts are a sign. Gifts point to how we feel. Two questions are important for all of us: how have our gifts demonstrated our feelings toward God …and what gifts could we give both to God and to others that more fully reveal our love?

Amen.