My daughter loves to watch a number of different PBS shows shortly after waking up. Something about breakfast and TV always seem to go together. On Sundays we try to avoid just watching anything, which led me searching out some of the recent Bible videos put out by the Church to see if they would hold her attention. I was impressed to what degree they did.
As we were watching a compilation of the different story-lines associated with the birth of Christ, we came to the segment with the three wise men coming to visit the Christ child presenting their gifts. The next piece in the story is naturally Joseph taking the family to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath.
It then occurred to me that the gold, frankincense and murr were probably how the family was able to completely uproot to Egypt for many years. You’ll recall that when Jesus was taken to be presented at the temple, his parents brought doves because they could not afford a ram. Joseph likely depended on his trade for their entire substance, moving to a foreign land would make that difficult. The gifts of the wise men were not idle pleasantries of celebration or even just worship by faithful men. They served to anticipate the needs of Joseph, Mary and the infant Messiah when they needed it most.