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.

Last Christmas

The song "Last Christmas" is one of my least favorite Christmas songs. It's truly a study in incorrigibility. The singer seems to want to improve his lot in life, but he just never learns.

"Last Christmas," he sings, "I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away. This year, to save me from tears, I'll give it to someone special."

First of all, he needs to understand that a heart is a very precious thing to give, and he needs to learn not to give it lightly. He seems to be beginning to grasp that, but it just doesn't sink in completely. How do I know? Because the next year, I hear him singing it again. This tells me that every Christmas, he gives his heart to someone special, and the very next day, that someone special gives it away. Instead of saving himself from tears, he ends up collapsing in tears every stinking December 26 because the "someone special" turned out to be not so special after all. He must have a serious case of insecurity, and no wonder, as he is consistently dumped every Boxing Day!

I guess the moral of the story is that you need to be much more careful in giving your heart than this singer. There are better things to give as Christmas presents than your heart. Especially if you give the same thing every year.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

One thing I find fascinating about the Christmas season is how soon people start packing up the Christmas decorations. Christmas Day ends, and boom! People start thinking about taking the decorations down. They don't realize that traditionally, December 25 is the BEGINNING of the Christmas season! Traditions differ on whether the legendary 12 Days of Christmas are December 25-January 5 or December 26-January 6. Either way, Christmas is not over at the stroke of midnight on Boxing Day. December 25 is, obviously, Christmas. December 26 is St. Stephen's Day. January 6 is Epiphany or Three Kings' Day.

As for the song The Twelve Days of Christmas, there are a few stories about its background. The one that comes to mind is from an e-mail that has been circulating. Snopes considers it to be bunk, and while I have learned to take Snopes with a grain of salt sometimes, I think they have a point here. More about that later.

According to the e-mail, the song was written during a time when the Catholics were severely persecuted. They wrote this song to remember the tenets of their faith in a way that the persecutors would not recognize. The gifts symbolized the following (I added the dates...they aren't mentioned in the e-mail. I included both possible dates, depending on which tradition):

A partridge in a pear tree (Dec 25 or 26): Jesus on the cross (also symbolizing His sadness over Jerusalem)

Two turtle doves (Dec 26 or 27): The Old and New Testaments

Three French hens (Dec 27 or 28): Faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13:13)

Four calling birds (Dec 28 or 29): The 4 Gospels/Evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)

Five golden rings (Dec 29 or 30): The Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)

Six geese a-laying (Dec 30 or 31): The 6 days of creation

Seven swans a-swimming (Dec 31 or Jan 1): The 7 gifts of the Spirit and the 7 Sacraments

Eight maids a-milking (Jan 1 or 2): The 8 Beatitudes

Nine ladies dancing (Jan 2 or 3): The 9 Fruits of the Spirit

Ten lords a-leaping (Jan 3 or 4): The Ten Commandments

Eleven pipers piping (Jan 4 or 5): The 11 faithful disciples (in other words, minus Judas, who betrayed Jesus and then committed suicide)

Twelve drummers drumming (Jan 5 or 6): The 12 points of doctrine in the Apostles' Creed

Snopes points out that there's no ancient documentation to support this, and the earliest data they can find to support it dates way back to the 1990s AD. One point that comes to mind for me is the Catholics' main enemies in the Middle Ages were Protestants...and most of the doctrines mentioned above are areas of agreement between Catholics and Protestants. Laws did go back and forth giving the death penalty alternately to Catholics and Protestants (depending on the persuasion of the King), but areas where the two faiths agree probably wouldn't have needed to be put in code. (Snopes also points this out.)

That said, I'm not convinced it's completely bunk. It may have involved some or all of that symbolism, but I think the info in the e-mail is generally a recent invention.

Now, for my facetious thoughts.

The singer has a very rich true love. Think of it: On day one, he or she gives a partridge in a pear tree. On day two, the gifts include two turtle doves and another partridge in another pear tree. The list goes on. According to my calculations, that comes to a total of 12 partridges in 12 pear trees, 22 turtle doves, 30 French hens, 36 calling birds, 40 golden rings, 42 geese a-laying, 42 swans a-swimming, 40 maids a-milking, 36 ladies dancing, 30 lords a-leaping, 22 pipers piping, and 12 drummers drumming, for a grand total of 364 gifts. The receiver would need a lot of space for a sudden onslaught of an arboretum of pear trees, a menagerie of 184 birds, and 140 people (who would all need someplace to sleep and live). Oh, and not to mention enough fingers to wear 40 rings. Maybe the singer could wear a different ring depending on what else they're wearing? Of course, that doesn't take into account that the geese are actively laying, so there will soon be many more geese. That also doesn't account for the fact that in order to be able to lay, all the geese would need to be female. There would need to be at least one gander in addition to the 42 geese. The swans would need someplace to swim. We would presumably need something for the maids to milk, since one doesn't typically milk birds. I would guess the ladies and lords have to dance and leap to get around and over everything else. The drummers and pipers would need a way to care for their instruments. That's also assuming that a partridge and a pear tree are a single gift.

So many animals in one place would probably raise concerns with organizations such as PETA and ASPCA, and if they allowed the singer to keep all the gifts, said singer would probably need to get a business license, declare it to be a zoo or farm, and make sure all the birds are treated humanely. I'm not sure what kind of legal issues that would raise in addition to that, but I'm sure there would be lots.

Then there's the issue of owning 140 people. The 13th Amendment to our Constitution specifically states:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Thus, all the people being given need to have consented of their own free will (unless, of course, they're serving time for a crime), and they would need to be treated with respect. They would either need to be under the clear understanding that this dancing, milking and music-making is volunteer labor, or they would need to be paid. Some politicians would probably insist that they unionize, which could lead to a lot of headaches and the threat of strikes if the singer doesn't treat them well or pay them as much as they feel they should be paid. Then there's the sticky issue of background checks. They would probably also need a lawyer or ten.

Oh yeah, and the singer would probably need to hire labor to take care of those 12 pear trees, clean up after the animals, feed the animals, etc.

Conclusion: I hope my true love, when I find her, understands that I don't expect her to give me all that, and I really don't want the headaches that would come with it.