Gifts of Prophecy

Matthew 2: 1-15

Christmas gifts are wonderful to give and receive.  And in my home our boy who is just two still does not expect or understand gifts.  He enjoyed many of the new items, including a shirt box and a empty tube.  In my family we receive and exchange Christmas tree ornaments each year.  It is wonderful to look at our tree each year and remember and recollect on the pass years.  Some especially from my childhood are slipping from my memory and/or are physically deteriorating.    My first ornament that started the tradition was given to me when I was but six months old.  It is a small glass bird, but I have no memory of that gift, save the memories of being told about it by my mother.  I recall she went out in the snow on Christmas Eve to get this special gift that started this Christmas tradition that now spans three generations. 

The Magi brought three gifts to Jesus.  Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, are gifts one would present a king.  Gold is of course very valuable, but so were the special resins, Myrrh being more valuable then gold at times in the ancient world, because of its scarcity.  The child Jesus I assume enjoyed playing with the boxes more then the gifts themselves, if not for Him acting like all other toddlers, but because the gifts were way too valuable for a family of meager means.  A family that would need to finance an extended stay in Egypt.  Once he was old enough to understand, I imagine His parents shared the story of the wonderful visit of the foreign Magi, and Joseph’s dream to save the family from Herod’s infanticide.

Jesus must have known He was Divine, yet being also fully human I know He must have pondered these gifts.  Why would they bring gifts for a king to a child of meager means?  Why were they foreigners who knew of His heavenly kingship?  And why Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh?  Of course Gold, was a valued metal as it is still today, and both incenses were of great value, but of course these foreigners from the East would bring treasures from their land that was not native to Israel.  It would had been strange enough for this poor family to have Gold and frankincense, but it was the myrrh that certainly seemed the most prophetic.   

In learning the Jewish religion, Jesus would be exposed to the Torah.  Within the tradition God was present in the Tabernacle and then in the Temple, and to anoint the altar and the priests there is a recipe for holy anointing oil (Exodus 30:33).   The recipe includes other ingredients especially cinnamon and oil, but the text begins with liquid myrrh, thus concentrated, and verse 32 states, “It shall not be used in any ordinary anointing of the body, and you shall make no other like it in composition; it is holy, and it shall be holy to you.”  This is interesting first of all because Jesus is the “anointed one,” the Christ (in Greek).  And why does God tell Moses to have this anointing perfume created?  This was to anoint the priests and the altar for the worship of God, and as specifically mentioned in verse 10 of Chapter 30, for the yearly rite of atonement.  This is the pivotal point.  Jesus will fulfill the law, the Torah.  It will not be a yearly rite, rather one horrific sacrifice of this anointed one, and atonement becomes communicable through the resurrection of the Christ.

Joseph hears God in a dream to save the child from death, as it was not simply Jesus’ mission to die, but to love, heal, and preach the good news.  Knowing full well that humanity would reject this perfect love with violence.  Herod’s fear and distrust that lead to lying and infanticide foreshadows, Jesus’ passion.  Rejected by His own people and the powers and violently killed, the young boys whose sins were that of babes were slaughtered by the King that should have protected them.  The Magi foretold that this child was not simply the King of Israel, but the King of the entire world. 

Can you imagine being a child that ponders these strange gifts, reserved for earthly kings?  Coming across the recipe for the anointing perfume and knowing it relates to not simply the yearly atonement but something even more profound and important.  A one time atonement for all, even beyond the Jordon and to the ends of the earth.  And perhaps while in Egypt learning that myrrh was a primary ingredient in preparing their dead, Jesus knew that people and powers would react like Herod.  However, as the King of Kings, as the anointed one, atonement would be achieved through His blood, and known by the resurrection.  Like a star that shows us the way.