COMMENT
Men should be sighing with relief this week, thanks to the Church of England. You see, the good people at the Church of England have been making some changes to the Anglican prayer book.
This kind of thing takes courage. Imagine if you got it wrong. Imagine if you replaced, say,
"Our Father, who art in heaven" with "Our Father, who's a bit arty-farty". The Big Fellah might get upset and turn you into a pillar of salt, or make you sail around in a boat for 40 days and 40 nights with two of every kind of animal that smells.
But the Church of England does not lack courage. According to the new prayer book the Wise Men who followed the star to Bethlehem with gifts for the young Jesus were not necessarily men. They were persons of unspecified gender called Magi. They may even have been women.
I've always suspected that the Three Wise Men were women. It's obvious. They were bearing gifts.
Men struggle with gifts. They always have. While cavemen were out hunting mammoths and throwing spears at each other, cavewomen were buying presents.
They would remember some casual remark that a friend had made months before about how much she really liked, for example, sticks, and then, at some appropriate time, they would go down to the stick shop and buy her some. The sticks would be lovingly wrapped in leaves, decorated with wildflowers and tied up with a bow of yellow flax. There would be an exchange card inside in case the friend had already got some sticks in the meantime.
This behaviour was baffling to cavemen. To them, giving sticks was pointless unless they were sticks you could stab someone with, or use to gets bits of mammoth out from between your teeth. Instead of giving sticks to each other, cavemen just gave stick.
I know. I'm being sexist, and before all you gift-giving non-cavemen write in and protest, let me explain. I'm not saying that men are incapable of buying gifts - we can learn this skill after many years of reading women's magazines and having certain privileges withheld when we forget anniversaries - but we are genetically indisposed towards it.
Look at the gifts that the Three Wise Men gave to Jesus: gold, frankincense and myrrh. These were gifts fit for a king. A lot of thought had gone into them. Gold is the most precious of metals. Frankincense and myrrh are smelly things for the bathroom. Are these the sort of gifts that men would buy?
If men really were in charge of getting gifts for the Messiah they would have forgotten that it was His birthday. They would have turned up with beer and stood around the stable, leaning on the donkeys and belching out the tune to Away in a Manger.
Even if they had remembered, they would have got something at the last minute from a 24-hour roadside souq on the outskirts of Bethlehem.
"Now fellahs," the first Wise Man would have said, "What shall we get this child?" "No idea," the second Wise Man would have replied, "but it should be something biblical, something that people in centuries to come will look back on with awe. Something fit for the Messiah, the King of Kings."
"Umm," the third Wise Man would have added, "how about some socks?"
Even if the Three Wise Men had figured out what to get, they wouldn't have got anything of use to the child. They would have got something that they wanted themselves. They would have showed up with tools, sports equipment and a subscription to Motor Magazine (a fairly slender volume in those days).
Remember, the gifts for Jesus were not just birthday gifts. These were the most important gifts that anyone has ever given. They were like birthday gifts, anniversary gifts, Valentine's Day gifts and Christmas presents all rolled into one.
These gifts had to be good enough to start the world's greatest gift-giving tradition. The job of choosing them was too important to be given to men, no matter how wise. Women had to be involved.
Look at the daunting precedent that was set. Wise men give gifts. Wise men give not just any old gifts. They give deeply thoughtful gifts, including things for the bathroom.
The whole thing is suspicious. I bet three wise women dressed up with fake beards and traipsed across Palestine pretending to be the Three Wise Men - you wouldn't have been able to tell if they left their sand goggles on - just to make men feel guilty about how bad we are at buying gifts. And for 2000 years we've fallen for it.
Yes, the Three Wise Men were women. Thank God the Church of England has put things right.
COMMENT
Men should be sighing with relief this week, thanks to the Church of England. You see, the good people at the Church of England have been making some changes to the Anglican prayer book.
This kind of thing takes courage. Imagine if you got it wrong. Imagine if you replaced, say,
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