Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

Learned men, rich and travelled and important, duck through a low doorway into an ordinary house. They see a small child on his mother's lap. And every one of them drops to his knees.

The magi have reached the end of a very long journey. They saw a star rise in the east. They crossed deserts and rivers to reach Jerusalem. They stood before King Herod and heard the scholars quote the prophet Micah: the ruler will come from Bethlehem. And just now, outside the city, the star appeared again and led them south, stopping over one particular place. Their hearts are overflowing with joy. And now they stand at the door.

Matthew says they came into the house. Not a stable or a cave. A house. Some time may have passed since the birth; Matthew now calls Jesus the young child. And they saw the young child with Mary his mother. No palace, no throne, no guards. A mother and her little boy in an ordinary Bethlehem home. If the magi had expected royal splendour, there was none. Yet they did not hesitate for a moment. They knew who this was.

They fell down, and worshipped him. In the ancient world, falling down before someone was what you did before a king. You bowed low, face to the ground, to show honour and submission. These men from the east had travelled all this way for one purpose, and here it is. To worship. Not to trade, not to sightsee, not to seek favours. Simply to honour this child as the King he truly was.

Then, Matthew says, they opened their treasures. Imagine the boxes being unfastened, the cloths being unwrapped. And they presented gifts. Gold, the metal of kings and crowns, precious in every land. Frankincense, a fragrant resin that was burned as incense in worship, and in the temple in Jerusalem. And myrrh, another costly resin, used in perfumes and medicines, and to prepare bodies for burial. These were the finest things the magi could bring. Treasures from the east, laid at the feet of a child from a poor family in a small town.

Frankincense and myrrh were valuable trade goods. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, describes them coming from southern Arabia, carried by long caravan routes, and he complains about how much money Rome spent on such luxuries. The prophet Isaiah had pictured a day when people from far away would come bringing gold and incense, praising the Lord.

The magi's gifts are in Matthew chapter two, verse eleven. Matthew does not explain the meaning of each gift. But Christians have often seen in them gold for a king, incense for worship, and myrrh pointing ahead to his death and burial. So here is a question to carry with you. If you could bring one gift to Jesus this Christmas, what would you give him?