A Light for My Path

There’s a frequently shared meme about the Nativity that three wise women would have been more practical visitors to the Holy Family than the three wise men. They would have brought useful gifts like prepared meals and diapers, performed midwife services, and cleaned the stable. I wrote last year about the difference between the portrayed stable scene at most Christmas pageants and the likely reality of the birth of the Son of God in a damp stable filled with smelly farm animals. (See “One Day Old,” December 26, 2022.)

There is a lot of debate about when and where the wise men actually visited Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus. It seems unlikely that they visited them in the stable in Bethlehem. They went to Jerusalem first and spoke with Herod. A royal king would be expected to have been born in the royal palace. The Bible says in Matthew chapter 2 that Herod consulted the priests who said the Messiah was supposed to be born in Bethlehem. However, the Magi were following the star, not human advisors. It led them to where Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus were staying. But, that wasn’t necessarily the stable where he was born.

Wherever these men eventually ended up, they had traveled a long way and were expecting to see a king (albeit a baby king). So, they brought gifts befitting a king. A king whose parents were wealthy and living in a palatial house surrounded by servants, nursemaids, and luxuries. They brought gifts appropriate to royalty. Unfortunately, other than the gold, these gifts probably weren’t particularly useful to a carpenter, his betrothed wife, and a baby. Frankincense and myrrh are essentially scented oils used as incense or in burial rituals. There are Biblical scholars who (in hindsight) say that the frankincense and myrrh symbolize the oil that was poured on Jesus’s feet and hair and that was used to prepare his body for interment. This could be the case. There are signs and symbols throughout the scriptures.

It is hard to comprehend the reality of Jesus – someone who is fully God and fully man. He was born to human parents who were common people in every way except that they had been chosen by God to raise the Messiah. They were both distant descendants of David, yes, but they were not royalty; not rich. Not extraordinary in any way other than they were chosen. They were each visited by an angel who explained what was happening: Mary, a virgin, was made pregnant by the Holy Spirit and Joseph was reassured that his wife-to-be was, not only, not unfaithful, but blessed – as were they both. And, they accepted these miraculous explanations.

So, we can joke that it sure would have been easier for Mary and Joseph if there had been practical attendants at the birth of Jesus. But, perhaps that would have taken away from the wonder, the mystery, the absolutely extraordinary miracle of how one member of the Trinity came to live on earth as a human.

Maybe it was divine wisdom that brought Asian kings, with wildly inappropriate gifts for a little baby, to a poor man’s house. Maybe that’s the lesson we’re supposed to learn. That looks are deceiving. That we should be open to all of God’s children. That there’s enough lavish love to go around. Pour the oil. Burn the incense. Gift the gold. Accept the miracle. Have a little faith . . .

Merry Christmas.

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Laura