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Story of the Gifts of the Magi |
 Why were those
first three gifts so special?
By Bruce M Thomas
When I was a kid I couldn't wait 'til Christmas. I could hardly sleep on Christmas eve. I wanted to stay up to see Santa and I got goosebumps thinking about opening my presents.
Christmas is still a great time of year, though the outward focus has changed a bit. Now I think about getting my kids presents and which Christmas activities to go to and how to craft meaning for my family during the busy holiday season.
Every year, it seems, we hustle through the commercial part of the holidays and every year we listen to sermons, songs and specials on TV reminding us that this commercialism is not the real meaning of Christmas.
If it is not the real meaning, where did gift giving come from? Our memories go back to the first Christmas story when God sent Jesus to earth. We recall that Jesus was given three gifts, which serve as the inspiration for all our gift giving at Christmas. We can hear the voices of the wise men in a famous Christmas carol:
We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts, we traverse afar,
Field and fountain, moor and mountain,
following yonder star.
The wise men presented Him with gold, frankincense and myrrh. And sometimes we may wonder, with the gift giving part of Christmas so important to us, why were those first three gifts so special?
About the author.
Bruce Thomas is the president of First Christmas Project which markets the First Christmas Present, a small wooden treasure chest with gold, frankincense and myrrh and a pamphlet which explains the gospel using the three original Christmas gifts as an object lesson. It is designed to be given by Christians to their friends and family.
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