On coming to the house, [the magi] 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, frankincense and myrrh. Matthew 2:11
“Worshiping Jesus means joyfully ascribing authority and dignity to Christ with sacrificial gifts. We ascribe to him. We don’t add to him. God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything (Acts 17:25).
So the gifts of the magi are not given by way of assistance or need meeting. It would dishonor a monarch if foreign visitors came with royal care packages. Nor are these gifts meant to be bribes. God tells us in Deuteronomy 10:17 that he takes no bribe.
Well, what then do the gifts mean? How are they worship? The gifts are intensifiers of desire for Christ himself in much the same way that fasting is. When you give a gift to Christ like this, it’s a way of saying something like this:
The joy that I pursue is not the hope of getting rich with things from you. I have not come to you for your things but for yourself. And this desire I now intensify and demonstrate by giving up things in the hope of enjoying you more, not the things. By giving to you what you do not need and what I might enjoy I am saying more earnestly and more authentically, “You are my treasure, not these things.”
John Piper in the Dawning of Indestructible Joy: Daily Readings for Advent (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014) 51-52.
For more on the the significance of the gifts of the magi, check out the CLA blog post I wrote, entitled, The Magi and the Messiah, dated 23 December 2015.
Just like the ornaments on our Christmas tree hold special significance to us (pictured above), our gift giving carries a message to Christ. Have you decided what message you want send him this Christmas and year-end through your giving?