Little Christmas! Growing up in Little Havana, Miami this week’s feast of the Epiphany of the Lord or more commonly called in Miami, El Día de los Reyes was always such an exciting time. Not only did you get to have Christmas but then a week later it was “little Christmas” there was always another small gift waiting for you and of course the parade: a mixture of Mardi Gras and San Genrero— akin to many of those wonderful cultural feasts that mix the sacred and the profane in so many different societies. As I grew older and more interested in religion I studied the Gospels and learned that the slightly surreal image of ancient kings bowing down to a small peasant family was a literary device to proclaim Jesus as the universal (not merely Jewish) savior. As St. John Chrysostom remarked, “They adored: for they saw a man, and they acknowledged a God.” Narratively and theologically the story serves to teach us that Christ is universal, these kings after all are not traditionally understood to be Jewish and therefore their worshipping at the feet of the Christ child tells us Jesus’ covenant with us is new and everlasting, meant for all people.
All people. That’s a wonderfully inclusive thought to have along with the image of these wise men giving gifts. It reminds me of a story about my mom. I must have been in the ninth grade or thereabouts and I was getting very interested in big ideas, like meaning and existence, I guess that’s what happens when you read Camus’ The Stranger and The Catcher in the Rye in the same year. So I was excited to try and stump my mother with big questions of existence, like a ninth grader thought he could. I asked my mom, “why do we exist?” Hoping for some dismissal, she simply stopped what she was doing, looked up and said, “to serve one another. Next question.” I was silenced and mumbled, “yeah.” So I guess on this day of Cuban pastries and dark café con leche, I’ll keep it simple. Why celebrate these rich, old men giving expensive gifts? To teach us how to give and serve, all people. Next question. Have a wonderful “little Christmas!”
I’ll be seeing you,
Elliot