The Christmas season ends on a high note, with the Feast of the Epiphany—also known as Three Kings’ Day, the day on which Christians traditionally commemorate the visit of the Three Wise Men to the infant Christ.
As a kid, I always had some trouble understanding the business about the Three Wise Men and the gifts. There was that weird but compelling carol that they always sang in church on the Sunday closest to Epiphany. I must have been seven or eight years old by the time I figured out that “Orientare” is not the name of the country where the Three Kings came from.
And then there were the odd gifts they were bringing. Gold always comes in handy, so I could see why you would bring gold to a baby—but what on earth were frankincense and myrrh, and why would anybody give them to a child? I figured myrrh might have something to do with myrtle, like the crepe myrtles that bloom so beautifully in South Carolina. So maybe the myrrh was flowers for the mom?
The frankincense had me completely stumped, and it wasn’t until I visited Oman a few years ago that I really knew what it was or what it looked like: It’s the waxy resin of a tree that grows in the desert, and when burned it gives off a rich smell. It’s a principal ingredient of incense and has found favor among modern purchasers of “essential oils”.
If you are ever lucky enough to visit the astonishingly beautiful and welcoming country of Oman, you will have innumerable opportunities to buy some for yourself at many different qualities and price levels. If your trip is like mine, you will also have the experience of seeing roadkill camel on the highway, and you will visit the tomb of the prophet Job, where you will learn that he was 14 feet tall and a Muslim. You will also learn that habitat degradation and over-harvesting are endangering the world’s frankincense supply.
In any case, the gold and frankincense may refer to a prophecy of Isaiah. In the sixth verse of the sixtieth chapter, the prophet speaks of foreigners coming to the Holy Land with gifts of frankincense and gold; these foreigners are said to be riding camels, which may be why the Wise Men in manger scenes so frequently have camels in tow. Frankincense was a key ingredient of the incense burned before divine altars in ancient times. It is still sometimes used in Catholic, Orthodox, and high Anglican services today, but there is less need for it in modern religious services than in the distant past. In the ancient world, altars were less a place of community meditation and gathering than a slaughterhouse; animals were killed on the altar and butchered on site. The process was not always clean. It got hot in the summer; without incense to cover the smell, few would have the hardihood to spend much time in the temple.
Read it all.
