What Wise Men Do with God's Promises

Is there something that God has promised you, that, well, you just haven’t seen happen yet? I know big question right off the bat. Maybe its something that you haven't even told your family or closest friends. Well I would be willing to bet that frustration is creeping at the door, so what can we do about that? What does God’s word say?

To answer that question I want to re-tell a very popular story. It is the story of the Wise Men visiting Jesus. I know you are very familiar with the story so I’ll just give the framework for it:

About the time Jesus was born a star appeared in the east and caught the attention of some ancient astrologers in the area. Knowing that this star was in some way significant, they packed their bags and set out to find its origin. They followed it to the land of Judea where they found a slightly older version of the baby Jesus that they are depicted with in every manger scene in history. Upon seeing the child they presented gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh and worshiped Jesus. They spent the night there, wrote the song “We Three Kings”, and headed home. (Matt 2:1-12)

Whether you are familiar with the Bible or not you have undoubtedly heard this story, but as I read this story a few weeks before Christmas, a thought hit me that I’ve never had before; “Why did the wise men bring gifts?” 

Sure the easy answer is, to honor Jesus. But gifts mean something. A gift says something about the person who is receiving it. For instance, no one would give me a Star Wars, defenders of the Galaxy, action figure at 23 years old. But at 10 that would have been the greatest thing ever. The gifts you give to a person tell a little bit about about who the person receiving the gift is.

So what did the gifts the wise men brought Jesus say about Him? I decided to look up the meaning of each gift to find its significance and what I found shocked me! 

Gold, the first gift that the wise men brought, was a gift for royalty. It was the kind of gift you would give to a king, a human king. Frankincense was a gift for a deity. It was the kind of gift you would give to a god. And Myrrh? Myrrh was a burial spice. The kind of thing you would anoint a dead body with before putting it in the tomb. Are you serious?!? At two years old the wise men said: This child is God. This child is a King. And this child is going to die. What more could you say about Jesus?? 

Ok Garrett, that’s great but how does this relate to dealing with God’s promises? Here’s how...

On children’s television shows they play a game called “which one doesn’t fit?” The point of the game is to identify the object in the group that is different than the other objects. If Mary were to have played that game with the gifts the wise men brought Jesus which gift do you think she would have picked? Yeah, probably the myrrh. 

See myrrh represented the thing that was in direct contradiction to the other two being true. Looking back from our perspective we can see why Jesus needed to die, but looking ahead from her’s she must have thought, “Gods don’t die, kings don’t die, so why?” I can even see Mary asking one of the men, why, on his way out the door. And I see him turning around looking back at her and saying, “Some things don’t happen the way you think they should, but that will never change who He is.” 

In every situation when it looks like God’s promises are taking a turn in a direction I don’t think they should, I remind myself of this truth: That even when it doesn’t look like I think it should, it doesn’t change who He is. And for every promise of God that looks like it’s heading in the wrong direction, I remind myself that Jesus died, and that looked pretty bad too. 

There might be a little bit of myrrh in every promise of God but just hold on to what you know is true...hold on to who He is!