As we light the Christ candle this Christmas Sunday, we are reminded of Christ in the center of our worship and as the sweetest gift of our hearts. Help us, O God, to follow the Christ way in our living and giving. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a bit of a tradition here at Broadway on a Sunday after Christmas that I tell a story. Just to lead in to that story, I want to say that I was extremely fortunate as a child, because I had a mother who read to me long before we knew how important it was for children to be read to. So I grew up loving books, loving stories, loving to read, and it is a gift that has graced my life ever since. 

 

I remember clearly at age 14 reading for the first time O. Henry’s short story, “The Gift of the Magi.” Now at 14, I was drawn by the romantic sweetness of this story. But even more significantly, I remember reading that story and understanding as clearly as I had so far in my life the power, the enjoyment, the magic of a story told really well.

 

If you don’t know about O. Henry, let me just say that in the late 1890s and the early 1900s, he was known around the world as America’s favorite short story writer. And I should mention that since this particular story was written over a hundred years ago, it does require of us to tune our ears just a bit to the way that words are put together, to the phrases, to the flow of the language. So just know that as the story begins to be told that we are hearing a wonderfully-told story by O. Henry from a hundred years ago.

 

And so know, I offer to you, “The Gift of the Magi,” by O. Henry.

 

-o-o-o-

 

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

 

There was clearly nothing to do but to flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. Which is just what Della did. Which leads to the reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

 

As the lady of the house subsides from stage one – sobs – to stage two – sniffles – take a look at the home. A furnished apartment for $8 a week. Down below in the vestibule, a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no finger could coax a ring. And yet underneath it a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”

 

The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze from a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 a week. But now, with income shrunk to $20 a week, they were seriously considering contracting the Dillingham down to an unassuming and modest “D.” But when Mr. James Dillingham Young came home from work and went up to his apartment, he was called “Jim,” and he was greatly hugged by Mrs. Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. And that was all very good.

 

Della finished her cry, and she stood looking dully out the window watching a gray cat walk along a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas, and she only had $1.87 with which to buy a present for Jim. What was she going to do? She had been saving her pennies for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week just doesn’t go very far. Expenses were greater than her calculation, as they always are. Now she only had $1.87 to buy her Jim a present. For many hours she had been thinking of what she wanted to get for him. Something nice. Something fine. Something rare and sterling. Something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

 

Suddenly Della whirled from the window and went to stand before the mirror. She reached up, and she let her hair fall to its full length. Her eyes were shining brightly, but the color had gone right out of her face.

 

Now, there were two possessions of which the Dillingham Youngs took a mighty pride in. One was Jim’s gold watch. It had belonged to his father and his grandfather. And the other was Della’s hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the apartment building across the way, Della would have hung her hair out the window to dry some day, just to depreciate Her Majesty’s treasures and gold. And if King Solomon had been the janitor, with all of this treasures piled up high in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed by, just to watch him pluck his beard with envy.

 

So now Della stood with her beautiful hair shining and rippling like a cascade of brown waters. It fell below her knees. It created a garment about her. And then suddenly, quickly, she put it back up on the top of her head. She caught her breath. With her eyes shining brightly, she put on her old brown jacket. She put on her old brown hat. She whirled her skirts and she fluttered out that door and down to the street.

 

Where she stopped the sign above the shop read, “Madame Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” Up one flight of stairs she ran. She was panting. She collected herself. Madame Sofronie, rather large, too white, and a little chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”

 

“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

 

“I buy hair,” said Madame Sofronie. “Take off your hat and let’s take a sight at the looks of it.”

 

Down rippled the brown cascade.

 

With a practiced hand, Madame Sofronie lifted the mass of Della’s hair. “Um, twenty dollars. I’ll give you $20 for it.”

 

“Give it to me quick.”

 

And the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Della ransacked the stores looking for the present for Jim.

 

At last she found it. It surely was made for Jim and no one else. There wasn’t anything else like it in all of the stores she had been in, and she had turned them inside and out. It was even worthy of The Watch. It was a platinum chain, simple and chaste in its design, properly proclaiming its value and substance alone rather than ornamentation – as all good things should do. They took $21 from her for that chain, and Della hurried home with 87 cents in her pocket. It must belong to Jim. She knew it as soon as she had laid her eyes on it. It was like him. It was quiet and refined, a description that applied to them both. With that chain attached to his watch, Jim could properly be anxious about the time in front of anyone. Grand as the watch was, before he had often taken a look at the watch on the sly, because of the old leather strap that was attached to it.

 

When Della arrived home her intoxication gave way to a little reason and prudence. She got out her curling iron, and she began working to repair the ravages made by generosity added to love. A tremendous task, dear friends – always a mammoth task.

 

Within in forty minutes there were tiny, little curls lying all over her head, and she looked wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror for a long time, carefully, critically.

 

“If Jim doesn’t kill me first before he takes a second look, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do? What could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?”

 

At 7 o’clock the coffee was made, the skillet was lying on the back of the stove, hot and ready to cook the chops.

 

Jim was never late. Della doubled the chain up in her hand, and she sat on the corner of the table just across from the door he always entered. She heard his step on the flight of stairs below. Her face lost its color for just a moment. She had a habit of saying silent little prayers about the simplest everyday things, and so now she whispered: “Please God, let him think I’m still pretty.”

 

The door opened. Jim stepped in and closed it. Poor fellow; he was only twenty-two years old. He was thin and so very serious. He needed a new overcoat, and he wore no gloves.

 

Jim stopped inside the door, immovable as a setter on scent of quail. There was a look on his face that Della could not interpret. It was not anger. It was not disappointment. It was not horror. It was not even surprise. It wasn’t any of the sentiments for which she had been prepared. He just stood there and stared at her fixedly with that peculiar look on his face.

 

Della wiggled off the table and went to stand next to him.

 

“Jim, darling, I had my hair cut, and I sold it. I just couldn’t bare the thought of not being able to give you a Christmas present. It’ll grow back – you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows back really fast, Jim. Jim, say ‘Merry Christmas.’ Let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice present – what a beautiful, nice present I have for you.”

 

“You’ve… you’ve cut your hair.”

 

“Cut it and sold it. But don’t you like me anyway? I’m still me without my hair, aren’t I?”

 

“You say your hair is gone?” as he looked curiously around the room.

 

“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “Sold it, I tell you, and it’s gone, too. Jim, it’s Christmas Eve. Be good to me, boy, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs on my head were numbered,” and then Della went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but no one could ever count my love for you, Jim. Shall I put the chops on?”

 

Out of his trance Jim seemed to quickly awake. He enfolded his Della in his arms. For ten seconds let us discreetly scrutinize some inconsequential object in the opposite direction. Eight dollars a week or a million dollars a year – what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit could give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but this was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

 

Jim reached into the pocket of his overcoat, and he took out a small package. He tossed it on the table.

 

“Don’t make any mistake about me, Dell. There isn’t anything like a haircut or a shampoo or a shave that could make me like my girl any less. But if you’ll open that package I think you’ll see why you had me going there a while at first.”

 

Nimble fingers tore into the paper and the string. Then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick change to hysterical tears and wails, which immediately necessitated the employment of all Mr. James Dillingham Young’s comforting powers.

 

For there lay The Combs – the set of combs that Della had long worshipped in the shop window on Broadway. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, jeweled rims – just the right shade to wear in her beautiful vanished hair. Della knew they were expensive. Her heart had craved and longed and yearned for those combs without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the hair that should have adorned these coveted adornments was gone.

 

She hugged them to her, and after some length lifted dim eyes and smiled and said to Jim, “My hair really does grow fast, Jim!”

 

And then Della leaped up like a singed little cat, “Oh, oh!”

 

Jim had not seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly in her open palm. “Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town for it. Isn’t it just perfect? You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Where’s your watch? Let’s put it together.”

 

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the little shabby couch. He put his hands behind his head, and said, “Dell, let’s put our presents away for a while. They’re really just too nice to use at present. Dell, I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose we put those chops on.”

 

The Magi were wise men, as you know, wonderfully wise men. They invented the art of giving presents at Christmas. And being wise men, their gifts were undoubtedly wise ones, probably bearing the possibility of exchange in case of duplication. And I have related to you the chronicle of two foolish children who sacrificed their greatest treasures for each other. But in a last word to the wise of these days, let it be said, of all of those who give gifts, these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as these, they are the wisest. Everywhere they are the wisest. They are the Magi.

 

The End

 

 

God of New Beginnings, as we launch the promise and potential of this New Year, keep us mindful of the blessings of old and hopeful of those yet to come. Your gifts to us are perfect enough to sustain and delight us. Thank you for the way you have used both the painful and joyful moments to draw us to your side and embrace you. Amen.