The "Wise men" from the East sought out the birth place of the child who they understood was to be born "King of the Jews." Their quest started in Persia, likely in an area close between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which is where present day Iraq is located. The route they took would have been similar to the journey Abraham made from that same area to the land of Canaan, which later became Israel. It was about 1000 miles and would have taken them at least a month and a half to make the journey. They brought with them gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh for the newborn child. The gifts are what lie behind our Christian tradition of giving gifts at Christmas and on birthdays.

If we examine the three gifts closely we can see exactly what they represent and that can reveal for us the essence of the Christmas spirit. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. In the writings of the New Church we are told that in the spiritual sense gold represents spiritual love, frankincense represents spiritual truth and myrrh represents both good and truth at the natural level. The latter is the practice of the two divine qualities by people in everyday life. The gifts are a trinity of things similar to the trinity of Divine Love, Divine Wisdom and Divine Action represented by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But here it is presented at the spiritual level rather than the Divine level. Another reference suggests the significance as being: gold = celestial good, frankincense = spiritual good and myrrh = natural good.

One very significant point is that the gifts are given to God as He is manifesting himself in the form of the baby Jesus. God is the source of these attributes so giving them back to Him as gifts represents an acknowledgement of these Divine qualities as they have been placed in our lives and an acknowledgement of God as being their source. The love and the wisdom placed in our lives by the Lord in the form of good and truth are returned to Him whenever we use them. And when we use them we are demonstrating obedience to them. The writings refer to these three gifts also as representing celestial good, spiritual good and natural good, and as "all things of the good of love and the good of faith in the Lord internally and both of them in external things. At first glance this might seem confusing or contradictory because we expect that there should be an exact one word significance for each item. But the language of correspondences does not work that way. It all depends on the context in which a particular word or item is being used. You see Divine Love is the source of all things. Good flows to the human race from Divine Love and goes through stages or degrees of change as it moves from the Divine form to the human form. It is celestial good then spiritual good and then natural good. It is also in Divine Wisdom which is the means of transmission that God uses to manifest His Love to us. And so the Divine Wisdom also goes through similar diminishing degrees; from a Divine form through celestial and spiritual degrees and ultimately down to a natural form. As the Divine Love transforms into various elements of good, so to the Divine Wisdom transforms into elements of truth as it descends through the process.

We can also view the child Jesus in a similar way. That is He is the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom manifested to us in the physical form of a human baby. That wonderful child embodies all the qualities of God in his little body. These qualities are then shared with the rest of humanity through the life he lived here in the world, and were left for all future generations as well. Good and truth are the gifts we have received and are the gifts we should share with each other as we celebrate their birth into the world.

May you have the gold of love and goodness, the frankincense of wisdom and truth, and the myrrh of obedience and use in the gifts you both give and receive this Christmas season and throughout the coming year!