Photo: ippo.ru
It’s not without reason, my brothers, that Christ’s manger has three gifts. There could have been more, there could have been fewer, but there were three. Is it a sign of the Most Holy Trinity in the Being of God, or a symbol of the future threefold ministry of Christ—prophetic, priestly, and royal; or, finally, is it an expression of the three parts of the essence of man, that is, spirit, soul, and body? The investigation of this is left to your faith and your understanding.
With this, let us focus on the gift-bearing Magi. These pilgrims from the east represented, we might say, the whole of mankind at Christ’s manger; and their gifts symbolically represent everything that can be offered to the Savior by us, His followers. In this regard, the gold means material gifts; the frankincense means spiritual, immaterial gifts; and the myrrh expresses gifts that are, so to speak, spiritual-material.
Therefore, there are people who bring the Lord gold, there are those who bring frankincense, there are those who bring myrrh, and finally, there are those who bring several gifts together. Who are these people? Reflecting on this will reveal to us how each of us can serve our Lord and Savior, like the Magi. Who, therefore, brings gold to the Lord? Those who sacrifice something from their labors and gains for the glory of God and the benefit of their neighbors. For example, if you built, renovated, or adorned one of God’s churches, you’ve thereby offered gold to the Lord. Your gift is pleasing to Him; for though He is now on the throne of glory, at the same time, He continues to appear in the manger for our salvation to this day. This manger is on the table of oblation in the church, where, we might say, He is as if born again in every Liturgy in order to again offer Himself to the righteousness of God for our sins. And how often He suffers need in this manger! He needs clothing and shelter, light and warmth. Therefore, if you do something for the good of the Church, then your offering is just as pleasing to the Lord as the gift of the Magi who brought Him gold.
Similarly, if you’ve helped suffering mankind, arranged something for the good of the sick, orphaned, strangers, the helpless, you’ve thereby offered gold to the Lord, for He is so full of love that He honors the needs and sufferings of those who believe in His name by His own needs and sufferings; therefore, He’ll reward help given to them as help given to Himself. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me (Mt. 25:40)—this is what He’ll say at the Dread Judgment to those who have been merciful to the poor.
Do we offer a lot of this gold to the Lord? Ah, if we compare what’s offered with what’s spent on the demands of our passions, on satisfying not only our needs but our whims, with even what is openly sacrificed to the flesh and the world, it will be the smallest portion. The church of God, for example, stands day and night before our eyes in ruins, asking for help; we’d rather build magnificent stables for our horses and carriages than pay attention to it. A poor man trembles before us from cold, hunger, and illness. We either refuse him harshly or we give him an insignificant mite; and on the same day we’re ready to squander half our estate in foolish gambling, or show lavish generosity at some spectacle. Such is our gratitude to Him Who was rich, yet for your sakes became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich (2 Cor. 8:9).
Who brings the Lord frankincense? Those who use their abilities, knowledge, and arts for His glory and for the benefit of their neighbors, which clearly constitute something that can’t be bought with any gold. All this is a gift of God to man; but it all can and should be a gift to God from man, an immaterial gift, higher than gold and silver.
This precious frankincense is offered to the Lord by the ruler of a city when his governance is animated by the spirit of Christ, directed not only to civil justice and external tranquility, but also to the support and strengthening of good morals and Christians virtues among the people. Such governance is like fragrant frankincense before the Lord and men.
The pastor of a Church offers the Lord frankincense when he vigilantly stands guard for hearts and souls against the delusion and temptations of the age, diligently proclaims the ways of the Lord, guides the lost, comforts the despairing, and edifies all.
The mother of a family offers the Lord frankincense when, without relying on hired hands, without being carried away by distractions and amusements, she devotes her time and abilities to raising her children in the fear of God, to habituating them to temperance, meekness, prayer, and benevolence. The sweet fragrance of this frankincense fills the entire house and then spreads everywhere with those who were brought up in it in piety.
The artist offers frankincense to the Lord when, instead of following the spirit of the times and indulging in human artistic passions and feeding them with impure compositions, he tries to turn all his works and inventions into an instrument of sound Christian taste, into a means for spreading the true and good with grace and beauty. And this frankincense spreads its fragrance to many. In general, since there’s no man who doesn’t have some ability, there’s no man who can’t offer frankincense to the Lord by using his ability for the glory of God and the true good of his neighbors.
The Magi’s third gift to the Lord was myrrh—the last gift, and therefore higher not only than gold, but also frankincense. What is this gift and why is it so important? Myrrh, like frankincense, emits a sweet fragrance, but its distinctive property is that it’s very bitter; therefore, it expresses our calamities and sorrows, tears and sufferings. Now it’s clear who brings the Lord the gift of myrrh. It’s brought by those who endure life’s calamities and suffer innocently, refusing to give in to desolate despair, faint-hearted grumbling, or useless wailing. It’s offered by those who, while enduring calamities, are animated not by proud contempt for men, not by the desperate suppression of every human feeling within themselves, but by living hope in the living God, by the thought that through their sufferings they’re cleansed of sins, perfected in virtue and, what’s even more gratifying, they become like their Savior Who died for them on the Cross. Such endurance of tribulations and the sorrows of the age in the spirit of faith and love is also a gift to the Lord, and moreover more precious than gold, more fragrant than frankincense.
Let all those who suffer ill hear this; let them understand the advantage of their seemingly bitter position which, in reality, if we apply faith and the Cross of Christ, is not without sweetness, and let them hasten to offer their myrrh as a gift to the Lord. The fortunate ones of this age can’t do this: they have no bitter need or lack, they have no myrrh. Many of those who possess frankincense, that is, outstanding gifts, also can’t do this: they have no heavy trials, no myrrh.
It’s you, the bloodless passion-bearers of God, who have it; you who, through no fault of your own (some by the lot of birth, others by the vicissitudes of circumstances, others through human malice, others through the frailty of our bodily constitution) greet and end almost every day with sighs, and who perhaps even met Christ’s feast with tears this morning. Those who look upon you pity your difficult situation; you yourselves perhaps sometimes fall under the weight of earthly trials. But we, in the name of our Savior, greet you with this precious likeness of His Cross!
Guard the precious myrrh that has fallen to your lot; don’t exchange it for any frankincense, much less for any gold, and don’t rob it of its fragrance through complaints and faint-hearted grumbling. Why complain? The Lord sees everything without that. Your every tear is counted, every sigh is weighed by Him, and will be rewarded a hundredfold in due time.
Amen.
