Peeps, hopefully all your Christmas shopping is done! As we brace ourselves for Storm Barbara in the UK, it is lovely to be indoors with an abundance of Christmas cheer (anyone who’s grumpy, please leave!). Now to wrap a mound of presents and turn up the Christmas music! Will everyone like their gifts? ‘Well, it’s the thought that counts,’ we say to ourselves….. The year is sometime between 4 and 2 B.C. (thanks to the miscalculations of Dionysius Exiguus) and the Magi are arranging a trip from the East to Bethlehem to see the Promised Messiah, who has been born to Mary and Joseph. They are coming to worship the One revealed to them as the ‘King of the Jews’ and it follows they should bring gifts fit for a King. In the ancient world, gold, frankincense and myrrh were often given as gifts to honour a deity. The Magi had not only understood that the Christ-Child was ‘King of the Jews’, but that He was to be worshipped as God ! How appropriate were the first Christmas gifts! N