Christmas Eve

December 24, 2007

Omaha, NE

Rev. Steven W. Plank

“Gifts”

Text: Luke 8:10 – “…to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

Scripture Lessons: various readings from Isaiah, Luke, and John

Proposition: We share “Gifts” at this time of year because of the example set for us by the ancient Magi who came bearing gifts to the Christ Child. Our gifts are merely reflections of the Gift – Immanuel.

Prayer for Illumination: Guide us, O God, by your Word and Spirit, that in your light we may see light, in your truth find freedom, and in your will discover your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Gifts. This is the time of year for gifts, it seems. Perhaps because of something that we did some two millennia ago now. My name is Melchior. I was one of the magi from ancient Persia, what you now call Iran. My culture is ancient, already over 4,000 years old by the time of the now-clearly-famous sojourn that two of my colleagues and I took in pursuit of a sign in the heavens that we had been observing.

You often call us “kings,” but that’s not the best sense of what we were. Perhaps you got that from my name. The root of my name in most Semitic languages is Melech, which means king or ruler. But that’s not who we were as a people. What might be another word that describes us? We magi were a group within Persian society that were the learned ones. We guided people who came to us with problems. We knew things… things that others thought were secrets, and, in some sense, they were right. We didn’t tell everyone all of the things that we knew, that we had learned, that we had studied, that we had observed, that we practiced. We were like medicine people in aboriginal societies… or like the tribe of Levi in Israel from which came the priests… or like shaman in other cultures… or like wizards. Maybe it’s because of your fascination about wizards that the word “magic” is a derivative of our name. That’s more for you to know than me, I suppose. We were not concerned with how others saw us or defined us. We simply were students… not in a classroom, but students of the universe, students of the work of the Divine, whose handiwork we believed could be seen written in the skies, the stars, and all of the things that are around us each day. We were magi, that’s all… and we attempted to put our learnings into practice by helping point people in the right direction when they came to seek us out for help and guidance with things in their lives.

And people came… often. Poor people. Wealthy people. Sick people. Confused people. Powerful people. It seemed that there was no shortage of people who were scared, or confused, or in pain, or in pursuit of power who came to us, seeking to find out answers, to discern direction, to perhaps even get some sort of “inside track” about what was going to come to pass. However, as I said, we were learned people, and it was hard to fool us when people came to us to try to pry from us things that would do nothing more than further their own selfish pursuits of power or pleasure or wealth or prestige. Those things matter so little in the scope of life. It’s almost humorous the things that we have observed over the years… things that people are so concerned about… things they think are so important… things they think they just have to know… things which, in the long view of life, are so incredibly insignificant. One of your own holy people, who came from India where many of us have had contact in our lifetime, once said: “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible; but in the end, they always fall.” We knew that truth thousands of years before your Gandhi spoke those words.

As I said, we studied things around us. We were simply observers I suppose… better than most, but simply observers. Thus we noticed when things began to perk up in the night sky. We had been watching stars and planets. We knew about comets and meteorites. But then we began to notice something new. I don’t really know how to explain what it was. I don’t believe that your best scientists still can explain what it was that we saw. But we weren’t so much concerned about what we saw as the fact that we saw it. Many people probably didn’t even notice. But we did. As I said earlier, that was our job, to notice things around us. It was so impressive that we had to follow. It was momentous, and we believed that it therefore was an indication of something momentous about to happen. We headed west, following where the phenomenon seemed to be leading us. We had plenty of time to study the heavens, of course. We didn’t travel fast. We had camels. We carried food to eat. We had servants to help us. We had tents to put up, in which to sleep and stay warm in the cold of desert nights. And we brought gifts. We weren’t sure why they would be needed, but we sensed that they would.

We travelled for weeks. It wasn’t that it was such a terribly long way, but what we were studying was in the night sky, so we were awake most nights, and therefore slept a large part of the day, when other people normally would travel. So we studied often, slept sparingly, and travelled only a little at a time. The more we studied and observed what we were seeing, the more we came to believe that the sign in the night sky was about not just some thing, but about someone… about Someone the likes of which the world had not known. It seemed that the heavens themselves were screaming louder and louder to us that One would be coming into the world who would change everything. Furthermore, much to our surprise, it seemed from the direction we were heading in our travels, that this special, chosen one would be a Jew. Israel was a relatively new nation, compared to our much more ancient society. The religion of Israel mostly was confined to its own people in their own locale. And their country was, well, not all that impressive: hills, deserts, little water, a short coastline. It was much smaller than our country was, and we just never paid a whole lot of attention to those people… until now, that is.

We did make one bad assumption as our travels and studies proceeded. When we got to Israel, we asked for an audience with the king. We assumed that those people had been studying and paying attention to what we could see more and more clearly each passing night. We further assumed that since this new person to be born was a Jew, that the Jewish people would be excited to welcome such a One into their midst! Bad mistake on our part! I suppose we really should have known better. As I said, we were used to dealing with people in power, and we had learned to see through selfish motives, self-serving ends, and false flattery. However, Herod fooled us… at least for a while. We asked him about this One who would be born to be the new king and ruler of the people. He said he would consult with his own learned people and tell us what their sacred writings told them. Several days later we were called to an audience with the king, and he told us the specifics that we needed to know; we were to travel to a small village named Bethlehem, and that we would find there the One for whom we had been searching. Then he said something that should have tipped us off right away: “When you find him, be sure to come back and tell me so that I, too, can go and pay him respect.” As I said, it took us a while, but we ultimately realized that whenever our sojourn arrived at its destination, of all the people that we might tell about what we found, Herod would not be one of them. The man clearly could not be trusted!

In any case, we excused ourselves, and continued our travel. It wasn’t far away, this small village… a day’s walk, two at the most. We arrived, and, to be candid, nothing “impressive” caught our attention, because there was nothing outwardly impressive anywhere in the village! It was an unassuming place. However, we noticed an air of excitement… of wonder… of activity around one particularly site. We went there, and stopped in front of what had to be the most unpretentious spot in this most inconspicuous of places. Our entourage stopped, and we got down from our animals. Our servants followed us, carrying the gifts that we had brought. Imagine our surprise when we entered and, after our eyes adjusted to the dimness of the site, saw there an old man, his young wife, and, of all things, their baby. We knew this was the end of our search. We knew that the tiny, squealing baby that was lying before us was the One for whom we had been searching, the One for whom the signs in the heavens came into alignment. Don’t ask me how we knew; we just knew. As I said, explanations were not as important to us as were observations. From seeing everything we had observed, this child was the One. We nodded in respect to the father, then to the child’s mother. They were more surprised than we were, if that is possible! Then we knelt… knelt in front of the Child. It was the most natural thing I had ever done in my whole life! This was the most special, holy Child ever to have graced our sometimes-dingy, often-pain-filled world. This was a Child who would make a difference in the world, who would make all the difference in the world. This was the Child who would be the source of life and hope and wonder and love and grace and awe for untold millions of people from this moment on.

We presented to the Child and his parents our gifts. Well, they weren’t the gifts we had planned, but, as we knelt there, they seemed the most appropriate ones. I gave him gold, for clearly the family had nothing, and they would need resources for the days and weeks and months and years ahead. Balthasar presented a gift of frankincense, which seemed strange at first, but then so fitting. It was what people used in ceremonies of worship, and we clearly were in a holy place of awe. Casper, though, surprised us… and, I think, surprised himself. Since we knew we were going to be traveling for a long time when we began our journey, and since people often died on long trips, Casper had brought a supply of myrrh, which is a spice we used for embalming the dead until they could be buried properly. Myrrh is what Casper presented as his gift to the Child. It was a surprise… and a puzzle. As learned as we were, we couldn’t figure out why he gave this Child something that was used for burial… as if this Newborn and his parents would be concerned about or even conscious of his death years hence. Who knows why Casper gave that? Perhaps you have an idea, from your perspective looking back on the life of this special, holy, chosen One.

There are many things that are a mystery to me still. But this I know. This Child, at whose feet I knelt in homage, respect, and worship, would change the world. Did he? Does he still perhaps change the world, change people’s lives? And, if he does, what “Gifts” do you offer him this night?

AMEN!