As preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church
Back
in the 1950s a regular element in our family Christmas observances was to watch
the TV broadcast of Amahl and the Night Visitors, a made-for-TV opera by
Giancarlo Menotti. This became the most widely produced opera in the world! The
story comes from Menotti’s Italian childhood memories. Amahl is the key figure
in the story. You might characterize him as an Italian version of Bob Cratchit’s
son Tiny Tim in Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. An impish shepherd
boy negotiating his life on a crutch, who worries his poor mother no end. The
story opens with the boy telling tales about a star with a long tail to his
exasperated mother. When a knock comes to the door and Amahl goes to see who it
is, he reports that it is a king. His mother's disbelief and a a return to the
front door, the report changes, it is 3 kings. That’s the end, mother has to
check this out herself, and SURPRISE, it is three kings! And yes,
bearing gifts.
By
the end of the story, Amahl and his mother have learned about the child the
kings are journeying to see. They want to give a gift to the child too but
realize they have nothing to give. Then the boy offers his crutch and at that
moment he is healed. The surprise visit leads to an unexpected healing. The
motive behind the gift was pure altruism.
It’s
not unreasonable to assume Mary and Joseph were quite surprised too when they
received the visit from the three magi bearing gifts. The visitors gave their
gifts but they took away with them the experience of meeting the transcendent
God who came into our world to be one of us and to be with us in our joys and
struggles.
The
image of gift giving surrounding this feast continues to this day. We may be
forgiven for our very human desire to focus on the gifts we give to and receive
from each other. To encourage giving can be virtuous. But the visit of the Magi
to the child Jesus is about stretching the meaning of giving beyond us to God.
The Great Entrance in our Divine Liturgy can, among other things, be symbolic
of the Magi bringing gifts to the Christ child. And what then happens to those
gifts? They are transformed into the body and blood of Christ and given back to
us as the food that sustains us on our journey to the kingdom. The message is
that what we give to God [the good soil we cultivate] bears fruit thirtyfold,
sixtyfold, a hundredfold. [Mk 4:20]
Amahl’s modest gift is
measured by his intension not by its intrinsic value. God’s gift to us is
measured by his unconditional love for us not by our efforts to impress God.
Even the magi who paid a surprise visit to Amahl received a surprise gift from
the child, witnessing a miracle and then being touched by the holiness that was
transferred through that child. This was the gift the Wise Men who visited the
Christ-child received. When they left the child, they didn’t go away healed as
Amahl but rather transformed. They didn’t go back the way they came, but rather
by another way, symbolic of their own transformation. Their eyes were opened to
a new reality. They followed a star, but found new life.
Christ is Born!
Glorify Him!
