Melchior of Arabia brought the baby Jesus the gift of gold – meant to honor royalty, which surely the mysterious star suspended over the little town of Bethlehem indicated.
Balthasar of Ethiopia presented the holy infant the gift of frankincense – honoring the divinity of the tiny babe who, beneath his divinity, was swaddled amongst the stable animals, as there was no room for the small family in the inn.
Caspar of Tarsus traveled a great distance bearing the precious gift of myrrh for the holy child – signifying the great burden of Christ’s dual nature, both God and man, and presaging the Crucifixion.
These are the stories of tradition, carefully preserved and passed on from parent to child during advent with great awe, mystery, and ultimately, responsibility.
Frankincense and myrrh are resins obtained from trees (genus Boswellia) in Africa. For millennia, supplicants have harvested the precious resins through a process of ‘bleeding’ the native trees. Small cuts are inflicted upon the trunk of the tree causing the sap to run, or bleed. Outside the body of the tree, the sap – the lifeblood of the tree – hardens and dies as it sacrifices itself in order to heal the tree of the wound inflicted upon it.
How like the precious resin are we called to be? Preserving the truth and life-giving gift of our faith may cause us to ‘bleed’, but we do so willingly because we love the precious Son of God who once lay in a humble manger amongst the stable animals.
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