Why Myrrh Matters
Article V in the 2022 Advent Devotionals series
It is the concern of many pastors and layfolk that amid the hustle and bustle of Christmas—amid the trees and lights and shopping mall santas—people are at risk of “forgetting the true meaning of Christmas.” This may well be true, but today I am concerned with a more subtle, more Christian form of “forgetting the true meaning of Christmas.” Sometimes Christians can become so caught up in the angels and shepherds and donkeys that we can fail to situate the story of Christ’s birth within the greater Christian story. In response to this, I suggest we turn today to a classic Christmas carol which reflects well on the full meaning of Christmas.
“We Three Kings” reflects on the three wisemen from the east who, we are told in the Gospel of Matthew, journey to pay homage to Jesus and present him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The song dedicates a verse to each wiseman and his respective gift. The first two verses deal with the gold and frankincense, which represent Jesus’ kingship and divinity. These verses, while beautiful, are not particularly unusual—they are, in fact, the sort of lyrics that one would typically expect to find in a Christmas carol. It is the third verse, meditating on the gift of myrrh, which takes the song in a radically different direction. It is not normal Christmas carol fare. Devoid of the angels, shepherds, and donkeys, the verse looks ahead to later in the story, to the grief and bitterness of the crucifixion of Christ.
Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume,
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying;
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.
Why should a Christmas song look beyond Christmas to the suffering of Good Friday? For the same reason that a wiseman should see fit to give myrrh to a small child: all who are born will surely die. This is a fundamentally human truth, best encapsulated in the biblical phrase “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:19 ESV). Jesus, though our fully divine king, is also fully human, and therefore just as destined for death at birth as the rest of us.
This, however, is not the end of the story—nor does the carol let us forget that. After another chorus, the song launches into the fourth and final verse:
Glorious now, behold Him arise;
King and God and sacrifice:
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Sounds through the earth and skies.
Here the beautiful truth unfurls before us. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22). While living merely as humans, as the descendants of Adam, we are dust, and to dust we shall return. But now our Lord Jesus has gone into the grip of death and overcome it, conquering Hell and trampling Satan under His feet. Christ has gone before us both into death and into resurrection. Those who live in Him by faith, though they die an earthly death, will be raised to life eternal (John 11:25-26). The life of the son of Adam moves from the birth of the womb to the death of the grave. The life of the son of God (both of Christ and of us in Christ) moves backwards, from death in baptism to rebirth on the day of resurrection (Romans 6:3-7) (Guite 80-81).
We sing of Easter at Christmas, therefore, because Christmas is not the celebration of one birth but of two. When we sing “come Emmanuel” during Advent, we are not only looking forward to the birth of Jesus, but also to His death, resurrection, and second coming. Even while we sing and feast and celebrate the birth of the King, there is a gathering gloom on the horizon. But while this darkness will be deep, we may turn with confidence towards the Jerusalem of Good Friday because we know that it will not have the final word. That belongs to the New Jerusalem, over which our Lord and King will reign forever.
Guite, Malcolm, Waiting on the Word. Canterbury Press Norwich, 2015.