Baby Jesus is the reason for this season. That's what I tell my children. It's what I was told as a little girl.

God's greatest gift to us was a baby boy, his son, who lived as a mortal man, suffered and died on a cross in payment for our sins.

Then he rose again. But that's Easter.

I hold each Christmas dear, for this day God brought us back to himself, gathering his wayward creation to his bosom, and forgetting our failings and failures.

All because of baby Jesus.

No wonder the three wise men didn't show up at his baby shower empty-handed.

Legend and the Bible tell us that wise men - Magi, as the Greeks called them - brought gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense to a makeshift nursery in Bethlehem.

We know little about the wise men. Matthew's gospel says they were "from the East" and came to Jerusalem seeking a king of the Jews. They told Herod, the titular king, that they were seeking the new king and were following his star to worship him.

Mysterious presents

We don't know what countries they were from, what language they spoke, or even what they wore. We're not sure there were three of them. They probably weren't kings.

What we do know is their devotion to their search and their demeanor when they ended it.

They bowed before the child and gave him gifts fit for a king - gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Why gold, frankincense and myrrh? The Christian churches attributed deep, spiritual meanings to these.

The gold was meant to be a tribute to Christ the King. The frankincense, an aromatic resin used for incense or worship, was meant to honor Christ as God.

And myrrh, also an aromatic and a painkiller, was used in preparing bodies for burial. It was a gift for Christ the Sacrifice.

I'm inclined to agree with a Catholic interpretation of Mary's reaction: she "pondered ... in her heart," the gifts and praises of the Magi. I wouldn't know what to make of such august yet mysterious offerings for a baby.

Especially the myrrh. It was an expensive resin, not found much in those parts. But it was something that recalled death, not a new life.

Finally, when the Magi left, they protected the child. Being warned in a dream about King Herod's murderous intentions, they did not reveal to him the location of the boy.

And so, Jesus and his family were able to escape before Herod, in a disastrous paranoia, ordered all of Bethlehem's infants slain in a vain attempt to kill the child king.

An eternal promise

The world's "first Christmas" was wonderful and bittersweet. Hardship, mortal fear, political turmoil, and loss all played a part.

There also was a miraculous love outweighing it all.

That's why Christmas is for some of us a mixture.

We recognize it's a celebration of God's greatest gift to us. But we also realize the solemnity, the extreme grace, the eternal promise of that gift.

It's a present we do not deserve and cannot repay.

It's why we give gifts to others, as a promise of our love, a compact that ends the old year and foretells the new one.

We prize most highly the joy of Christmas.

Sure, there are the Santa fables - and the obvious over-run of commercialism at this time. And who hasn't had visions of the winning Powerball ticket dancing in their head?

But no matter how far we get from the sacredness, the meaning of this day remains.

God gave himself to us. We give ourselves to others.

Like wise men, we give gifts - because someone gave us the greatest one.

E-mail damos@enquirer.com or phone 768-8395.