I dropped off 3 items at the UPS store this morning to return to Amazon. One was a book that arrived damaged and the others were clothing that didn’t fit. The commercial giving season that comes with Christmas is over and the season of returns has arrived. There also may be some discounted purchases being made, but Beth and I aren’t really doing that this year. In any case, in many people’s view, the time for gifts is done until next year.
Yet the great Christian tradition, until recent American decades, has long viewed the days after Christmas as a continuing time for gift giving, up to and including January 6, the feast of Epiphany. At least part of the reason for that is because that day is celebrated as the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem as told in Matthew 2:1-12. One key part of the narrative is that the mysterious figures from the east brought extravagant gifts to the toddler Jesus.
Those gifts of the magi have, in fact, been the primary basis by which their identities have been imagined and filled out in Christian legend. Though Matthew in no way identifies them as “kings,” their bearing of gifts, especially those gifts, connects them with the kings who “come to the brightness of your rising,” in Isaiah 6:3 (see also verse 6) and “the kings of Arabia and Saba” who offer gifts in Psalm 72:10. Those connections were made early, probably by at least the third Christian century, and so we have the hymn, “We Three Kings” and many other songs, poems, and stories.
That number 3 itself is the result of simply counting the number of different gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh. Nowhere does Matthew tell us there were three magi, only that there was more than one, but Christian imagination quickly apportioned the three sorts of gifts each out to one each of three bearers. Further speculation on their eastern origin assigned each of them a country more or less east of Judea, gave them names and even ethnicities, and firmly fixed them in Christian life and thought.
The biblical truth of the matter, however, is that the only recorded gifts for the Christ Child did not arrive on “Christmas,” close to His birth. Instead they came a year or two later in the hands of those strange visitors. Apart from the fact that the birth of Jesus is itself celebrated as the greatest Gift of God, if we wanted a more accurate traditional portrayal of events surrounding the coming of our Lord, we might do well to more often imitate European and other traditions which include gift giving on Epiphany, the day we remember the magi bringing their gifts.
A lesson we might draw from all this is that our generosity and giving of gifts, especially to the poor and helpless, is something which ought not end at Christmas, but extend beyond that day, and not just until January 6, but throughout the year. Wise people give generously. Let that be at least part of what we take away from this Sunday’s Gospel.