They Came Bearing Gifts

 

December 20, 2024

 

I keep hearing sermons about how Mary and Joseph had to flee to Egypt to escape Herod, and how this poor family of refugees led a sorry life.

 

But Mary and Joseph, for the times, were loaded. The gifts that the magi gave them weren’t mere tokens.

 

So, they had gold; if that ran out, they could have sold the frankincense and the myrrh. So, it’s a touching story, but even if they really did have to flee to Egypt (another dubious claim), the rest seems like someone with imagination filling in some gaps, the same way that people have Jesus being born on a snowy night in midwinter. 

 

In fact, I’m kind of wondering about the whole “poor carpenter” thing. Unless Mary and Joseph were spendthrifts, or the magi traveled all that way to just give them party favors, they should have been set for life. (Again, if the magi came at all. Bible stories are notoriously flexible with the truth.)

 

Anyway, either they were exiled but rich; or the magi never came at all, and they weren’t exiled, and worked for a living.

 

Who really knows?