"On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh." ~ Matthew 2:10
In reading the account of Christ's birth, I had never noticed (until our teacher pointed this out in Sunday's lesson) that it never says there are three wise men. All the nativity sets and movies portray it that way, perhaps because they presented three gifts, but there could have been two wise men or there could have been dozens! This is not my main point, but it opened my eyes to the fact that sometimes we (I) just read over familiar scripture without really allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to us. We just assume we know what it means and what it has to say.
Anyway, in this Sunday school lesson, we talked about the gifts from Magi (however many there might have been). They gave Jesus gold, which is a gift for royalty, because he is the King of kings. They gave him frankincense, which is a gift for a deity. This was a very valuable gift, and was one of the four ingredients in the incense for the temple (see Exodus). And they gave Jesus myrrh, which was used in mummification and embalming. This represented his sacrifice. [Another new thing I learned: both frankincense and myrrh are harvested from the sap of trees.]
These were wonderful gifts, and had great meaning, but these wise men gave Jesus one other gift: worship. Jesus is God, so he doesn't need us to give him anything; He made it all in the first place! Worship was the most important of all the gifts, because it is what we were created to do.
This leads me to think, what is worship, really? It's not just the time we spend at church. In order to truly worship God, I must truly let him have control of every nook and cranny of my life. I must trust him utterly and completely. I must keep him first in my life. I must let him use me to do his will. And I must appreciate him, not just for what he does for me, but simply for who he is.
Anyway, in this Sunday school lesson, we talked about the gifts from Magi (however many there might have been). They gave Jesus gold, which is a gift for royalty, because he is the King of kings. They gave him frankincense, which is a gift for a deity. This was a very valuable gift, and was one of the four ingredients in the incense for the temple (see Exodus). And they gave Jesus myrrh, which was used in mummification and embalming. This represented his sacrifice. [Another new thing I learned: both frankincense and myrrh are harvested from the sap of trees.]
These were wonderful gifts, and had great meaning, but these wise men gave Jesus one other gift: worship. Jesus is God, so he doesn't need us to give him anything; He made it all in the first place! Worship was the most important of all the gifts, because it is what we were created to do.
This leads me to think, what is worship, really? It's not just the time we spend at church. In order to truly worship God, I must truly let him have control of every nook and cranny of my life. I must trust him utterly and completely. I must keep him first in my life. I must let him use me to do his will. And I must appreciate him, not just for what he does for me, but simply for who he is.
