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This does not celebrate Christ's birthday nor honor it or Him! Suppose someone you love has a
birthday. You want to honor that person on his or her birthday. Would you lavishly buy gifts for
everyone else, trading gifts back and forth with all your other friends and loved ones, but ignore
completely any gift for the one whose birthday you are honoring? Rather absurd, when viewed in
that light, isn't it?

Yet this is exactly what people the world over are doing! They honor a day that is not
Christ's birthday by spending every dime they can scrape together in buying presents to trade back
and forth among friends and relatives. But I can say by years of experience, as I believe most pas-
tors and ministers can say, that when the month of December rolls around, nearly all professing
Christians forget to give gifts to Christ and His cause almost altogether! December often is the
most difficult month to keep Christ's work from dying! People are too busy trading gifts back and
forth among themselves to think of Him and His Work, it
seems. Then, in January and even into February it seems they
have to catch up from what they spent for Christmas, so they
seldom get back to normal in supporting Christ and His Work
before March!

Now consider what the Bible says about the wise men giv-
ing gifts when Christ was born. It is in Matthew 2:1-11. "Now
when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of
Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to
Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews?
... And when they were come into the house, they saw the
young child with Mary
his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they
had opened their treasures, they presented unto HIM gifts;
gold, and frankincense, and myrrh."

Why Gifts Presented to Christ

Notice, they inquired for the child Jesus, who was born KING of the Jews! Now why did
they present gifts to Him? Because it was His birthday? Not at all, because they came several days
or weeks after the date of His birth! Was it to set an example for us, today, to trade gifts back and
forth among ourselves? No, notice carefully! They did not exchange gifts among themselves, but
"they presented unto HIM gifts." They gave their gifts to Christ, not to their friends, relatives, or
one another!

Why? Let me quote from the Adam Clarke Commentary, volume 5, page 46: "Verse 11.
(They presented unto him gifts.) The people of the east never approach the presence of kings and
great personages, without a present in their hands. The custom is often noticed in the Old Testa-
ment, and still prevails in the east, and in some of the newly discovered South Sea Islands."

There it is! They were not instituting a new Christian custom of exchanging gifts with
friends to honor Christ's birthday. They were following an old and ancient eastern custom of pre-
senting gifts to a king when they came into his presence. They were approaching Him, born KING

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