Her name was Della. Her husband’s name was Jim. They were a poor couple, very much in love with each other. As Christmas nears, Della wonders what to get for Jim. For months she had been saving her money, but all she had to show for her efforts was $1.87. She wanted to give him a chain for his pocket watch but she doesn’t have enough money to afford one. Then she gets an idea. She decides to cut off her long hair and sell it to buy the chain for Jim.
On Christmas Eve, Della excitedly returns home with a simple platinum fob chain. She begins to worry, wondering if Jim will be disappointed that she had cut her long hair, which reached below her knees, that he so much admired.
Della climbs the final flight of steps to their tiny apartment, excited yet apprehensive. Within forty minutes, her head is covered with tiny curls that make her look like a schoolboy.
“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do—oh! What could I do with a dollar and eighty seven cents?”
Della had the habit of saying silent little prayers about the simplest everyday things. As she hears Jim climb the stairs, she whispers, “Please, God, make him think I am still pretty.”
When Jim sees Della’s short hair, he is speechless. When she opens her Christmas present, her joy quickly turns to hysterical tears. There in the box is the set of beautiful tortoise shell combs for her long hair that Della had eyed for the longest time. And when she hands him his gift, he too can hardly believe his eyes. There in the palm of her hand is a beautiful platinum fob chain for the pocket watch his father had given him that he had just sold.
Della and Jim had given away what they valued most so that they could give to each other a gift for Christmas. In his best known short story, The Gift of the Magi, written in 1905, O. Henry observes, “Here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days, let it be said that of all who give gifts, these two are the wisest.They are the magi.”
We associate the Magi, known also as the wise men, with the feast of Epiphany, which we celebrate today. Its name comes from the Greek word for manifestation or disclosure. In this passage, Matthew shares the moment when God reveals his son, Jesus, to the wise men from the east. By doing so, God is revealing his love to all peoples, not just the Israelites, and giving them the opportunity to accept the gift of his son, Jesus.
In return, The Magi gave Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Giving gifts is common to every culture as a part of its etiquette, economy, and expression of friendship. On Christmas day, many of us were engaged in the ritual of exchanging gifts, especially with people close to us. In many other countries, Epiphany is the day when family and friends share gifts with one another.
What is God saying to us here? This feast provides an occasion to reflect on the art of giving gifts to one another.Gift giving is not just a gimmick, even in this season of atrocious ties and unthinkable unmentionables that we may have already exchanged. This season invites us to realize that there are far more important things in life than one’s most treasured possession. As Della and Jim demonstrate,there is something profoundly religious about the act of giving a gift to those we care about. They know that the perfect gift is one that carries one person into another.
When we realize that everything we get our hands on doesn’t belong to us, we are led to give others their due. That is justice. When we give to someone in need, that is alms. When we give out of our need, that is sacrifice. When we give regardless of need but because we are compelled to give, that is love, which brings us face to face with God.
Unfortunately, gift giving can run into ingrained attitudes that work against its potential to express love. We do not receive gifts, we tend to rate them. Every gift can be located on a continual scale from excellent to poor in taste and from expensive to cheap. The object often becomes valued or disvalued in terms of its quality and expense. Depending on how we judge the object, we then infer how the giver feels about us. When that happens, the gift is more a love substitute than a symbol of a loving relationship.
I recall talking with a non-Christian one Christmas years ago who expressed dismay over the business of exchanging gifts as we do during this season. She felt so many gifts were given for the wrong reason and maybe they are. Della and Jim made sacrifices to get gifts that reveal and strengthen the depth of their love for one another. No wonder O. Henry called them the wisest.
God has given us the ultimate gift of salvation, manifested in his Son, Jesus. In turn, what do we offer God? Some spare change? Or a gift that is honestly a sacrifice on our part? When we can really say, “I am poor, nothing do I have. Therefore, I give you my heart,” we will see for ourselves that we are not far from the true presence of God.