Giving Jesus the Perfect Birthday Gift
As our celebration of Christmas begins, we may be thinking of the gifts we plan to give our family and friends. The tradition of gift-giving came to us from the example of the Magi, or Wise Men from the East, who brought gifts and laid them before Jesus on the first Christmas.
Bible scholars have suggested the gifts they gave—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—spoke to the purpose of Jesus’ coming to earth. Gold was a gift that speaks of royalty, authority, and power. Gold is certainly a befitting gift since Jesus was the Ruler of Rulers, the King of Kings. Frankincense was an incense the priest added as an aroma to the sacrifices offered in the temple. The gift of frankincense could remind us of how Jesus has come to make the sacrifice for our sins, once and for all (Hebrews 9:26). Myrrh was also an aroma that was mixed with oil to be sprinkled on clothes as a perfume and deodorant. In John 19:39, we’re told how Nicodemus and Joseph prepared Jesus for burial using a mixture of aloes and myrrh. If frankincense pointed to Jesus as the priest who has come to make a sacrifice for our sins, so too does myrrh point us to Jesus who was the sacrifice for our sins. I don’t know if the Magi understood how fitting the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh were as they gave them to Jesus, but they were certainly appropriate gifts.
As I think of the Magi giving these gifts to Jesus, it strikes me that on the birthday of Jesus, we have a gift-giving list that includes family and friends but give hardly a thought to the gift we might give to Jesus. It seems to me that if the Magi introduced us to the gift-giving tradition of Christmas and brought gifts to Jesus in celebration of His birth, so should we. But if I put Jesus on my gift list, the problem becomes, what gift should I give to Jesus? Put another way, what can we give Jesus that He doesn’t already have?
Looking to the Scripture where the Magi offered their gifts, we read, “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 2:11). I underlined the words that were the real gift the Magi gave to Jesus. In seeing the infant Jesus, the Magi were given the faith to believe this baby born in poverty to peasant parents was the true King who has come as the Savior of the world. Their worship of Jesus as King and Lord was the true gift. The laying down of the gold, frankincense, and myrrh was simply an appropriate response to their worship.
As we think of what we might give to Jesus, there is only one gift we can give that He doesn’t have by His rights of being God. Certainly, Jesus doesn’t need gold as He makes streets in heaven out of the stuff (Revelation 21:21). He doesn’t need the effects of frankincense or myrrh. Jesus has and owns everything. He has and owns everything that is… except us. He doesn’t own our love. He doesn’t own our heart. He doesn’t own our will. He doesn’t own our obedience. In a word, Jesus owns everything except our heart.
This Christmas season, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Savior of the world, the perfect gift to give our Savior is the one thing He longs to receive, our heart. When we give Him our heart, our worship, our obedience, our love, our life, we will be giving Jesus the perfect gift and the one gift Jesus opens with delight (Matthew 18:12-14).
In the story of the Little Drummer Boy, the boy with a drum came to see the infant Jesus around the same time the Magi came. As the Magi offered their impressive gifts, the boy with a drum approached the baby Jesus wondering what gift he could offer:
Little Baby, I am a poor boy too
I have no gift to bring that’s fit to give the King.
Shall I play for you, on my drum?
Mary nodded, the ox and lamb kept time
I played my drum for Him, I played my best for Him.
Then He smiled at me.
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