Epiphany is January 6th...

...but we'll be celebrating it the Sunday before, the 4th, because Lutherans don't usually have big church services on a Tuesday. Epiphany marks the end of the Christmas season (I will finally have to stop saying "Merry Christmas"), and the revelation of the identity of Jesus Christ, that baby born in Bethlehem. It has also come to be associated with the visit of the three "wise men" or "kings".

Actually, anyone who has ever played a Bible trivia game probably knows that there were not actually three wise men. Or, rather, there could have been three, but Matthew doesn't happen to tell us. Three is just convenient to hold the gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Actually, "We Three Kings", for all that it reinforces the "three kings" thing, gets the gifts exactly right:

Glorious now behold him arise,
King and God and Sacrifice

I love this stuff. The point of the three gifts is that they identify the recipient. They tell us who this baby Jesus is. Gold is a gift for a king. Frankincense is an offering for a god. Myrrh identifies a sacrifice, and is associated with death.

But the other things about these gifts is that they make no practical sense. What is a baby going to do with frankincense, really? What use has Mary for myrrh? I suppose they could sell it, especially the gold, but then, why not just give them money? Do these wise men really have no idea what kind of things a baby needs?

Okay, so I kind of like the image of these three (okay, we'll say three) incredibly intelligent, scholarly men (and we'll say they're men), completely and utterly baffled by a tiny baby. Maybe Mary offered to let them hold the baby (he might've been old enough to be toddling around, but that's another topic), and they sat there frozen, as people unused to babies sometimes do, terrified of breaking this tiny, precious thing. I hope he spit up all over their beautiful (though travel-stained) robes, and then Joseph had to change his diaper, and the visitors were just horrified. But still, they gave their gifts, useless and impractical as they were. And despite it all, they were special gifts, beautiful gifts, the kind that gets remembered for two thousand years.

This makes me think about how we try to give back to God. What do we actually have that would be of any use? God doesn't even need our worship and praise. God doesn't need anything. But God chooses to want a relationship with us, and God even graciously accepts our well-meaning gifts. Actually, God even enjoys our gifts, because God loves us that much. He doesn't have to. There's no practical reason why he should. But that's God. Practical? Not so much. A good thing, too.

~Pastor Sarah