Jesus Laughing

WARNING!! THIS BLOG IS IRREVERENT TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE POSSIBLE. If you are at all sensitive to my satirizing about religious events, grab your Gideon and giddy up, cuz this ain't the blog for you. I personally think that God had a great sense of humor because he created aardvarks, didn't he? I think he would appreciate satire and hyperbole in His name, so take off, eh, Hosers, if you don't like it. : )

Jesus Laughing. By Sue Cassidy

As the countdown to the Christmas Gift Exchange begins, I'm hearing all kinds of media controversy about whether or not gift cards are the answer to all our gift giving problems, or if they are the Spawn of Satan. The problem is, it seems that the media is the only venue where this Devil Incarnate seems to reside. I have never heard a real, live Gift Card recipient EVER complain, "Oh, dear. Another gift card that I can use to buy whatever I want, when I was really hoping for another crocheted doily from Grandma...." HELLO!!!!!!! How could anyone not WANT a Gift Card? Not only are they great for the recipient and oh-so-convenient for the giver, they are actually BIBLICAL. Huh? You say? Biblical? How so? Well. I know it is a thin line between brilliant theory and stupid rationalization, but let me say this about that:

Picture poor Baby Jesus being born in a manger. It had to be some freakin' cold and here is this poor little son of a bitch -- oh wait. Did I just call the VIRGIN Mary, a bitch? How irreverent of me, she wasn't a female dog. A pregnant and unmarried, teenaged tart, but she was no bitch. So here is this poor little Bastard, who doesn't even get His own crocheted quilt from Grandma to snuggle up in. It is so cold you can see His breath, right next to the breath of the pigs in the barn. Pigs!!! Bad enough He is freezing to death, but this poor little yet-to-be-circumcised Jewish baby is forced to share his frigid oxygen with NOT KOSHER pigs, and the dairy is not even separated from the NOT KOSHER live pork bellies in the barn. I think this is what they refer to when the bible talks about "Original Sin." But I digress.

Along come the three Wise Men. They came bearing gifts for the newborn baby. What did they bring him? They brought him gold, frankincense and Myrhh. Great. Just want a freezing baby living in an unkosher, freezing manger needs. He could have been better served with a nice, warm, woolen blanket, made from kosher sheep. But NOOo-o-o-o-o-o-o, the Wise Men brought what was meaningful to THEM. Let's discuss one by one:

Gold. It's precious, valuable and worthy across all cultures and times. Gold is money.

Frankincense. This came from a milky sap tapped from the Boswellia tree. Frankincense has been touted for its medicinal and soothing properties. Ancient people burned frankincense, believing it to carry their prayers to heaven. This was a tradable commodity in biblical times, so it was essentially money.

Myrrh. Myrrh's most notable use in biblical times was that of an embalming material, used in Egyptian mummies. In fact, how very prophetic of the Wise Men as Myrrh was one of the burial spices of Jesus, 33 years later. Like Shakespeare would say, Jesus was "hoist on his own petard." Like Frankincense, Myrrh was also a valuable trading commodity and for 3 chickens and a goat, you could get enough Myrrh to keep you from decomposing until you got to the other side of "Da River", if yas know what I'm sayin', Tony. So, it too was essentially money.

Do you see where I'm going with this? The Wise Men went to a lot of trouble to give Baby Jesus a gift card!!!!!! Something he could trade for something he wanted. A Gift Card is the modern day equivalent of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh! So pat my head and call me brilliant, right? Think how much easier it would have been if the Wise Men had itty bitty little gift cards to carry across the desert, instead of all that heavy, hard to carry Gold. Trying to keep the shepherds from smoking the Frankincense must have been a bitch of a job. Maybe the bright star in the East was an hallucination because the Wise Men themselves smoked some of it, I don't know. And the camels eating the sticky tar-like Myrrh! I think that is why camels appear to chewing a cud to this day. Yes, indeed. Gift Cards would have been the ticket, but as it happened, they really DID give the biblical equivalent thereof.

So this year, when you are thinking about gift options for your loved ones, think back to where the tradition of gift giving started. It started with a baby in a manger who received Biblical Gift Cards, for which he probably traded for a warm blankie. Merry Christmas, folks.