And going into the house [the wise men] saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.
–Matthew 2:11
I love reading. And some of my favorite books are stories in which everything is going along normally when all of a sudden, a twist happens. If you’d been living at the time of Jesus and heard the story of the gifts that were brought by the magi, you would’ve heard a shocking twist.
You see, the gold symbolized His royalty; the frankincense, His deity. But the myrrh was an incredibly unusual gift for a baby since myrrh was a substance that was used to embalm the dead. Why would you bring that for a baby?!
Well, looking back 2000 plus years later, we know why. When Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world, His body was anointed with spices and myrrh before it was buried. Now I’m certain the magi couldn’t have understood this. But just as God led them into the presence of the King, I believe He superintended in the giving of these gifts – the myrrh foreshadowing His death.
Many people love the image of the baby Jesus, but don’t like to focus on His death on a cross. But if we want to find truth, we have to accept the whole truth, even when we don’t like to hear it. And for these wise men, the whole truth was lying in that manger – this God-King would die so that we might be born again.
THE WHOLE TRUTH ISN’T ALWAYS CONVENIENT, BUT WE HAVE TO ACCEPT IT WHEN WE FIND IT. ASK GOD TO OPEN YOUR HEART TO THE WHOLE TRUTH OF CHRIST TODAY.
