The First Noel

January 6 has been a fairly eventful day throughout history. In his novel Notre-Dame de Paris (translated into English as The Hunchback of Notre Dame), Victor Hugo tells of the Feast of Fools on that day, when the people of Paris have a competition to see who can wear the ugliest mask. Quasimodo wins without even trying, and is crowned the Pope of Fools. In 1540, Henry VIII married Anne of Cleves (a marriage that would end in divorce). In 1759, George Washington married his wife Martha. In 1994, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked. It is the birthday of Joan of Arc (1412-1431), John DeLorean (1925-2005, whose car company would have an important part in Back to the Future), EL Doctorow (1931-2015, whose book Ragtime would inspire a movie and a musical), Justin Welby (born 1956, current Archbishop of Canterbury), Eddie Redmayne (born 1982, British actor who played Marius Pontmercy in Les Misérables, Newt Scamander in the Fantastic Beasts movies, and Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, among others), and many others. Just two years ago, our former president provoked a terrorist attack on our Capitol in an effort to get the will of the people overturned. Several cultures celebrate Christmas Eve. 

In the Christian calendar, January 6 is Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day. It closes out the Christmas season. Depending on the tradition, it's either the day or the day after the author of The Twelve Days of Christmas received twelve drummers drumming and a whole host of other gifts from their true love. It commemorates the Wise Men (a.k.a. We Three Kings) visiting Jesus and bringing their gifts. When considering what song to write about today, my first thought was "We Three Kings," but I already did that one (see the link earlier in this paragraph). "The First Noel" also mentions the magi.

The Magi Journeying
James Tissot, c. 1890
Brooklyn Museum

One thing that strikes me about the Christmas story is how God chose the most unlikely of people to receive the announcement of the birth of the Messiah. Shepherds were the lowest of the low in their culture. They were often outcasts. The Magi were foreigners, and they were likely astrologers. Aside from the magi who came from the east to visit Jesus, the only other mention of that word in the New Testament is in Acts 8, when Peter and John encountered Simon the Sorcerer. The word translated "sorcerer" is the same word, a magus (the singular of magi). They were star gazers and advisers to kings, often followers of Zoroastrianism. It just said the magi came from the east, but doesn't specify where. Traditionally, they came from Arabia, Persia and India, respectively. Wikipedia has some interesting details on what scholars believe about their possible origins and further details. The number of magi is unknown, traditionally told as three because they brought three gifts.

The first two verses of "The First Noel" concern the shepherds. The angel announced the awesome news, and the star led them to the stable. Verses 3-5 tell about the wise men, or magi. They followed the star to search for the new King. It led them northwest, until it stopped over Bethlehem. They entered the house and presented their gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense. (My "We Three Kings" post details the significance of those gifts.) Verse 6 is our response. We "sing praises to our heavenly Lord, that hath made heaven and earth of nought, and with His blood mankind hath bought." There have also been other verses over the years, but that's the version we currently sing.

When did the magi visit? The past few years I have thought it was two years later. When they arrived, the Bible says they visited the house, not the stable. Herod ordered children two years and younger killed after the magi visited, which is when Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt. However, my friend Mikel Del Rosario (also known as The Apologetics Guy) recently pointed out that the stable was likely in Joseph's ancestral home. It could have been as early as 40 days after the birth. People generally think of it being 2 years later because of Herod's order, but he could have just been covering his bases. We don't know precisely when they visited.

The song originated in Cornwall, England, during the 13th or 14th Centuries. It may have originated as a miracle play, ancient plays portraying biblical stories and accompanied by song. The Cornish gathered in the streets to sing it. More details on that here.

Unexpected Guests

The news was getting out. Sometime earlier, God had used angels to announce Jesus’ birth to shepherds. Now He chose another interesting and unusual way of announcing it to someone unexpected. This time no angels appeared. But a group of guys in the east, professional stargazers, were looking into the sky when they saw an unusual star. Where were they from? We don’t know, but it could have been Arabia or Persia. They studied the stars, and they believed that the stars showed signs and announced events. They had also studied many ancient scrolls, and they had read that a King of the Jews would come someday. Somehow they realized that this star had something to do with that King, and they wanted to know more. They were known as magi. We get the words magus, magi and magic from the same word. There was a lot of mystery about them, and some people believed they could do magic. They were also known as wise men because they often gave advice and interpreted dreams and other things for kings. How many of them went on the trip? We don’t know. But we do know that they chose three interesting and expensive gifts to take with them on the journey they were about to take.

Gold was a gift for a King. Frankincense was a gift for the Son of God. Some people burn it when they worship. Myrrh was a gift for the Messiah. It’s a spice that people used when they were burying people. Prophecies told that the King of the Jews would be the Son of God and the promised Messiah, and that one day He would give his life to save us. The gifts that the magi chose showed that they had read the prophecies, and they knew who they were about to meet. They were pretty excited about this, because it isn’t every day you meet someone like that! So as soon as they saw the star, they gathered their gifts, packed up, and left.

It was a long journey. If you’re looking for a King, where do you look first? You go to the capital of the country and find the King’s palace! So they found themselves in Jerusalem at the palace of King Herod. They started to ask around, “Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw His star when it rose, and we’ve been following it so we can worship Him.”

When Herod got word that these guys were asking around about a new King of the Jews, he was pretty upset. What new King of the Jews? Herod was King of the Jews! Did this mean someone was about to take his place? He liked his job and his life, and he didn’t want to see it end because some kid was gonna come and take his throne!

So Herod called the experts: the priests. They had also studied the prophecies, and so they told him that the prophet Micah had said that the Messiah would be born in the tiny village of Bethlehem.

Then Herod came up with a crafty plan. He talked to the magi and found out exactly when the star had appeared. He told them about the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. “Go there,” he told them, “and when you’re done, come back here and let me know where he is… because I wanna worship him too!”

So the magi left Jerusalem and followed the star to Bethlehem. It kept going ahead of them until it stopped over a house. They couldn’t contain their excitement! They knocked on the door, and when they went in, they saw him. The boy was probably somewhere around 2 at this point. Mary and Joseph couldn’t believe their eyes as a bunch of richly-dressed foreigners came into the house and knelt down to visit their son! They laid their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh at his feet.

That night, one of the magi had a dream that included a warning: Herod wasn’t planning to worship the new King of the Jews. So the next morning, instead of returning to Jerusalem, they left, and went home another way.

Joseph also had a dream. An angel appeared to him and said, “Quick! Get up! Take Mary and Jesus and get out of here! Herod is about to come looking for Jesus to kill him! Go to Egypt and stay there until I tell you it’s safe to come back.” Later someone remembered that the prophet Hosea had once foretold, “Out of Egypt I will call My Son.”

Sure enough, Herod’s men came looking for Jesus, but He wasn’t there. Sometime later, the angel appeared to Joseph again and told him, “It’s OK to go back now. Herod has died.” So the young family returned to their hometown of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up.

I Saw Three Ships

"I Saw Three Ships" has always slightly baffled me. What does the Christmas story have to do with ships? Why three? What were the Virgin Mary and Christ doing on a ship? The farthest the Bible tells about them going was when Joseph, Mary and Jesus fled to Egypt (probably via donkey or camel) to escape King Herod's murderous rage.

The singer claims to have seen three ships bearing the Virgin Mary and Christ come sailing into Bethlehem on Christmas morning (which is interesting, since, as Wikipedia points out, Bethlehem is about 20 miles from the Dead Sea, the nearest body of water). The singer goes on to tell how all the angels and "all the souls on earth" will sing. It then recommends that we all rejoice amain (which, according to Dictionary.com, means "with great strength, speed, or haste"...so in other words, we should rejoice at the top of our lungs).

I'm all for rejoicing at the arrival of the Savior, and it is definitely worth the angels and everyone on earth celebrating. But that still leaves us with the question... Ships?!

Apparently, the song is from the 17th Century, likely written in Derbyshire, England in 1666. According to The Hymns and Carols of Christmas, legend says that in the 12th Century, three ships carried the gold, frankincense and myrrh given by the Wise Men (one gift on each ship, I guess) to Koln, Germany. As the years went by, the legend replaced the Magi with the Holy Family (other versions of the song also mention Joseph).

That makes a bit more sense. I still think it's weird, though.

UPDATE: According to my friend Wendy Marcinkiewicz, camels were known as "the ship of the desert." That could be another explanation, which would make sense.

We Three Kings

We Three Kings is a great song. Like many hymns, people who know it often only know the first verse. It tells the story recorded in the book of Matthew of three wise men who came from the east, following a star to visit the infant Jesus and bring Him kingly gifts. I find it interesting that they use the word "traverse" rather than "travel." The two words are related, but traverse involves crossing, going back and forth. It often implies a search, rather than just a trip. The wise men knew from their studies of ancient prophecies and the heavens what the star meant. But a star is high in the heavens. If one is following a star, it's hard to tell precisely where it is leading. That's probably one reason they visited Herod to find out what he knew about the promised King of the Jews. He didn't know much, so he asked his experts, who told him that the prophet Micah had foretold that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). After consulting the experts, Herod, terrified about this promised King who might just overthrow him, got back to the wise men and told them to search for the new King in Bethlehem and come back so that he could "worship" [see: kill] Him. The wise men then proceeded to follow the star until it stopped over the house [note it does not say stable...more about that later] where Jesus was. I'm not sure how they knew it was that exact house. Many paintings depict a shaft of light coming from the star like a celestial spotlight, shining on the house/stable. However they figured out which house it was, it seems that it was pretty obvious to them when they got there. They presented their gifts and left by a different route, since they had been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod. When Herod realized that the wise men weren't coming back, he got really mad and ordered all the boys in Bethlehem under the age of 2 killed. The song, of course, doesn't mention most of those details, but that's what happened.

The second, third and fourth verses of the song go into greater detail on the individual gifts that they brought:

Gold was a gift for a King. Prophecies foretold that Jesus would be King of the Jews, and that His reign would last forever. The wise men came to pay homage to the newborn King, who was so great that His birth and reign had been prophesied for hundreds of years.

Frankincense was a gift for God. Prophecies also indicated that Jesus would be no ordinary King, but rather God in human form. Frankincense is basically the hardened sap from a Boswellia tree (see the Wikipedia article for more details). It is often used in incense, and when it is burned, it lets off fragrant smoke that rises into the heavens (provided there aren't walls and a roof in the way). It is used by many traditions in worship. In India, they use it for medicine, and some people use it as a mosquito repellent.

Myrrh was a gift for the Messiah, who would one day, about 30 years later, die a painful death to save us from our sins. Like frankincense, it is a kind of sap, this time from the Commifora variety of trees. In several ancient cultures, it was used as an embalming spice. It was likely one of the spices the ladies brought when they came to put on Jesus' body and instead discovered that His tomb was empty. Myrrh is also used in many cultures (including China and India) for its medicinal qualities.

The final verse is more or less a summary of the gifts and praise to God. It points out that He is "King [thus the gold] and God [frankincense] and sacrifice [myrrh]." It then goes on to say "Alleluia, alleluia! [הללו יה, Hebrew for "Praise the Lord!"] sounds through the earth and skies."

The lyrics are here. The song was written by John Henry Hopkins, Jr. in 1857 for a Christmas pageant featuring his nephews and nieces. It was also featured at another pageant at New York City's General Theological Seminary, where he was the music director at the time. It was published in 1863. (See the Wikipedia articles on the song and Hopkins for more on that.)

---

As for the timing and location of the visit of the Magi...they are often portrayed as being at the stable, all ready for the group shot with the shepherds, sheep, goats, cattle, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus in the manger. Not so. Matthew specifically states that they came to the house, not the stable, where Jesus was. The census was over, and many people had gone home. Apparently, Mary and Joseph had stayed in Bethlehem and found a house to live in by this point. I'm sure they got out of the stable as soon as possible, and they probably didn't want to make the difficult journey back with a newborn baby in tow. Jesus could have been as old as two years by this point, judging from the fact that Herod ordered all the boys age 2 and younger to be killed (based on information he had gotten from the Magi).

---

One thing I find interesting about We Three Kings is that the title is a bit of a misnomer. There were probably more than three of them, and they were not kings. The Bible doesn't actually say how many wise men came, so the traditions draw the number from the number of gifts that they brought. Traditionally, their names were Balthasar, Gaspar and Melchior. According to Spanish tradition, Melchior came from Europe, Gaspar came from Asia, and Balthasar came from Africa...which is interesting, since the Bible states that they came from the East, and Europe and Africa are northwest and southwest, respectively, of Israel. In any case, I don't know how many of them came. I just know that they brought at least three gifts.

So if they weren't kings, who were the wise men? The Bible calls them Magi (or "wise men"; the singular form is magus), an order of advisers to the King of Persia dating back centuries before the birth of Christ, to the days of their founder Zoroaster. They studied the stars and interpreted their meanings. Today we would call them astrologers. It is likely that the advisers of King Nebuchadnezzar, in the prophet Daniel's time, were magi. Some even believe Daniel was a magus. Interestingly, the term is also translated "sorcerer" in the book of Acts. The word magic is related to it.

This tells me a lot about the people to whom God chose to announce His coming. They were the last people anyone would think of announcing the arrival of God in flesh. Shepherds were the lowest of the low in Jewish society. They were regarded as dirty outcasts, only fit for raising sheep to be used in sacrifices. Astrologers have long been regarded as evil occultists in religious circles. (The apostle Paul even struck a magus with blindness, due to his opposition to the Gospel.) When He grew up, Jesus pointed out that "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:31-32). The shepherds probably had very little, if any, education, and they likely didn't know much about the prophecies or even the Lord, but one visit from an army of angels, and they became some of the first evangelists. The Magi were highly intelligent individuals who had the ancient texts and the interpretations of the stars at their disposal. They were obviously very rich, considering the gifts that they brought. They believed that the stars foretold the future. As believers in Christ, we often tend to shun people who believe, dress or behave differently from us...but that's exactly who God chose to announce His coming to. Jesus died to save them. Shunning and avoiding them is an insult to His sacrifice. I'm not saying we should do what they do, but we need to show them His love, not scorn. Judging is God's job, not ours.

Oh...one more thing. Why am I posting this now? I meant to post it on January 6, which is Three Kings' Day, also known as Epiphany, the traditional end to the Twelve Days of Christmas (the day the singer received a whopping 78 gifts - 23 birds, 55 people, and 5 rings). In his novel Notre Dame de Paris (which was later translated into English and renamed The Hunchback of Notre Dame), Victor Hugo tells about a counter-celebration that the non-Catholics celebrated on January 6, the Feast of Fools (or, as the Disney version calls it, Topsy Turvy Day). On a related note, I find it interesting that in English, both the French musical Notre Dame de Paris and Disney's version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame involve Quasimodo being crowned "the King of Fools." But Hugo wrote his novel as a criticism of hypocrisy he saw in the Catholic Church, and the French versions of the novel and the French musical have them crowning Quasimodo "the Pope of Fools." Once again, people translating something as "King" where that's an inaccurate translation.