In March 2013, a company called What3Words was incorporated. In April of the same year, it lodged a patent application for technology for e-commerce, deliveries, navigation, emergency services, etc. The company stated that every three-metre square of the world had been given a unique combination of three words. Their purpose was to aid people in discovering where they are and where they are trying to get to.
The Bible often combines three words to identify a location or a situation in our minds. For instance, if I said ‘Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh’, you would possibly be transported in your mind to a location in the ancient city of David, Bethlehem. It may remind you of the baby Jesus, or as the angel told Mary, ‘the Son of the Highest’ who was born to ‘save his people from their sins’. The three gifts the travellers from ‘the east’ brought were significant and of great value. I think these gifts would have been used by Mary & Joseph to pay for their exile to Egypt with the baby Jesus, but the three gifts are also a unique reminder of who Jesus was and the purpose of his birth.
Gold has always spoken of wealth, of the best that earth can offer, but the gold in this story also reminds me that the Lord Jesus had a different kind of wealth. It was not the fragile wealth of humanity that could disappear in a moment but the wealth of the creator of the universe. God’s riches are not measured in human currency but are the timeless values of love, truth, justice, peace, kindness and holiness (incidentally, the whole Universe belongs to God as the creator [humans have been entrusted with its management]. So he is also incredibly rich in terms of physical assets). So Jesus, as the Son of God, was immeasurably rich but became poor (through becoming a man, suffering for sin and dying on a cross) so that we, through his poverty, might be rich, 2 Cor. 8:9.
Frankincense was also highly valued and used for various purposes—medical, aromatherapy, fragrance for soaps, lotions, perfumes, and incense. It reminds me of the beautiful character of the Lord Jesus and the blessing He would become to those who know Him by faith.
Myrrh is the strangest of the gifts. It was commonly used to anoint the body of someone deceased; it was also used for medicinal purposes and food flavouring. Interestingly, the word ‘myrrh’ most likely came from the Arabic word ‘murr’, which means bitter. I don’t think that I am stretching my imagination when I suggest that the myrrh points to the suffering of Jesus on the cross. The bitterness of His death produced an outcome that will cleanse all who come to Him for salvation. He said, ‘And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. -- This he said, signifying what death he should die, John 12:32-33’. It is significant that at his birth, we are reminded of his death, that he would suffer once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, 1 Peter 3:18.
I hope these three words will help you locate where you are in life's journey and discover why Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
All photos courtesy of Unsplash
No comments
Post a Comment