The day after

I hope you all had a good Christmas Day, however you chose to celebrate it.  I seem to have exhausted all the topics on this day after - whether you call it Boxing Day, St Stephen's Day, Wren day or whatever. So I thought I'd try and answer a question which has always intrigued me - why did the three wise men, or magi choose to bring gold, frankincense and myrrh as their gifts?  There seem to be two answers - the symbolic and the practical.  Symbolically, gold represents kingship, frankincense represents divinity (it has been burned as an offering to God or gods since time immemorial) and myrrh was used mainly in embalming, and therefore represents death, which must ultimately come to us all.  So the underlying meaning was that they saw Jesus as a king, a god and one who would die for the good of mankind.  Of course the practical answer is that these were three of the most valuable gifts you could give - gold still retains its value today, but back then spices generally were difficult to get hold of, and therefore valuable, and frankincense and myrrh, both of which had to be got by cutting into trees to get at their sap, were especially rare.  Its worth noting that when the Queen of Sheba visited King Solomon, she also presented him with gold and spices.  So they were simply bringing the best they could.