Pastor’s Pen
May 12, 2008
Pastor Horace Light
Matt 2:11 (NIV)
“On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.”
Tis the season for giving!
Comedian Milton Berle once told of a man by name of Carter who was very hard of hearing, but for some reason never wore his hearing aid to church. One Sunday the minister announced that there would be three different collections for different causes. The first time the collection plate came round, Carter dropped in a quarter. The second time, a little puzzled, he dropped in a second quarter. When the collection plate came around again, Carter turned to the man in the next pew and said, “What are they going to do next frisk us?” (1)
Unfortunately, this season has come to mean that many of us will be ‘frisked’ as we prepare for a time of sharing. The retail stores are lamenting that sales may be down, the automobile industry has fallen on hard times, jobs are being cut, so what is the Christian to do in the spirit of giving?
Matthew tells us that strangers came at the birth of our Savior to bring very special gifts. Notice that the gifts were given exclusively to the baby Jesus and were brought as a act of worship.
Matthew Henry says that their gifts were significant in that they offered:
Comedian Milton Berle once told of a man by name of Carter who was very hard of hearing, but for some reason never wore his hearing aid to church. One Sunday the minister announced that there would be three different collections for different causes. The first time the collection plate came round, Carter dropped in a quarter. The second time, a little puzzled, he dropped in a second quarter. When the collection plate came around again, Carter turned to the man in the next pew and said, “What are they going to do next frisk us?” (1)
Unfortunately, this season has come to mean that many of us will be ‘frisked’ as we prepare for a time of sharing. The retail stores are lamenting that sales may be down, the automobile industry has fallen on hard times, jobs are being cut, so what is the Christian to do in the spirit of giving?
Matthew tells us that strangers came at the birth of our Savior to bring very special gifts. Notice that the gifts were given exclusively to the baby Jesus and were brought as a act of worship.
Matthew Henry says that their gifts were significant in that they offered:
Maybe in this time of tight budgets we need to reexamine our motives for giving and bring back into focus the ‘reason for the season’.
Love,
Pastor Horace
1) Milton Berle, More Of The Best Of Milton Berle’s (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1993), pp. 130-131.
2) Matthew Henry, volume 5, pg 14
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