If you were with us last Sunday to close out the old year gone by, we began to take a look at Psalm 72, a mighty treatment of a royal son who would be all that Solomon ever dreamed of being, and then some. He'd be a good king, a fair king on the side of the poor, a wise and compassionate king who refreshes life. And, what makes this king stand out even from the historical Solomon is that his reign will last “while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations” (Psalm 72:5). Brothers and sisters, Solomon is off his throne, his wealth gone who-knows-where, and sun and moon endure without him. Solomon couldn't live up to this Solomon song. We needed someone better, someone greater, someone who could be King of All the Years. And then Jesus Christ was born. He was born, but he'd already been King since before sun was lit or moon was crafted. He is born, this Potentate of Time, and all history passes beneath his scepter and before his judgment.
Back to this psalm we come, hungry and thirsty for more of King Jesus. Now we find he isn't just Potentate of Time, but he's the rightful king of all space: “May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth!” (Psalm 72:8). The psalm prays that even the most distant powers would submit: “May desert tribes bow before him, and his enemies lick the dust!” (Psalm 72:9). “May all kings bow down before him! May all nations serve him!” (Psalm 72:11). It's a picture of total submission, of every knee bowing and every tongue confessing – even the national ones, even the royal ones, even the imperial ones (Philippians 2:9).
And that calls for more than just words. “May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute; may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts!” (Psalm 72:10). Tarshish – Tartessos – was in south Spain, rich in silver and tin. Sheba, whose queen visited Solomon, was in south Arabia, while Seba was across the Red Sea in northeast Africa. So God tells Zion: “A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come, they shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall bring good news, the praises of the LORD. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to you, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you; they shall come up with acceptance on my altar, and I will beautify my beautiful house” (Isaiah 60:6-7).
If a few of those words leapt out at you, they should. Yesterday was the ancient Christian feast of Epiphany, of the manifestation of Jesus to the world after his birth. In addition to celebrating his baptism in the Jordan, it also remembers how, just as the shepherds were the first Jewish witnesses to the newborn King, so God called Gentile witnesses, too. “Behold, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him'” (Matthew 2:2). Early Christians specified that these were “Magi from Arabia,”1 and suggested the reason they knew the significance of this birth was that, from the time they saw the royal star, they found their power vanishing.2 After some next directions courtesy of the Hebrew Scriptures, these Magi traveled the last miles to Bethlehem, and found the heavenly light revealing the exact house to visit. “They rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and, going into the house, they saw the Child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him” (Matthew 2:10-11).
Later, people started picturing them as kings, based on the recognition that easterners treated magi with nearly royal honors.3 Tradition made of them Gentile kings bearing tribute for their True Sovereign, the king of Psalm 72, as a way of showing us that from the moment of his birth, Jesus is already so much more than even Solomon was at the height of his empire. And, however many they were, they came bearing three gifts (Matthew 2:12).
They brought gold, that precious metal we still prize. To be a king practically meant being surrounded by the gleam of gold. They brought frankincense, hardened tears of the light-colored resin produced by a scruffy-looking coastal tree that grows in south Arabia and northeast Africa – Sheba and Seba.4 This frankincense, excellent in perfumes, was an expensive commodity traded around the world; the Romans imported thousands of tons yearly, unable to conquer the land where it grew.5 Frankincense was also used in worship, including at Israel's gold-plated temple. And then there was myrrh, the darker resin produced by a different genus of thorny tree that grows in those same parts of Arabia and Africa.6 Likewise valued for perfumes and also for medicines, Israel had it as a major ingredient in the holy oil that could only be used to anoint priests (Exodus 30:23). But it had long been used during burials to mask the scent of decay. And so the Magi came bearing “not only gold as a sign of honor and frankincense as a sign of worship, but also myrrh as a sign of his future burial.”7
When they found the one they came to see, all they saw with their eyes was a little Jewish boy, not dressed up in fine silks or ornamented by any outward displays of glory. They'd undoubtedly been much more impressed elsewhere, so far as their eyes were concerned. Yet they'd been led there by signs in the sky and the voice of prophecy. And so they fell on their faces before him, they emptied their treasure chests to him. In heartfelt humility they gave him gifts fit for a loved one, for a king, for a temple, for a God.
But back from the House of Bread (Bethlehem) to the Psalm of the King. It asks, “May there be abundance of grain in the land! On the tops of the mountains may it wave; may its fruit be like Lebanon, and may people blossom in the cities like the grass of the field!” (Psalm 72:16). Not only was grain a basic foodstuff, but it was central to Israel's life of sacrifice: with every sacrifice came grain on which frankincense had been sprinkled (Leviticus 2:14-15). Grain was bound up with sacrifice, with worship.
And now this King in Bethlehem has, as the psalmist prayed, become the abundance of life-giving grain. Jesus calls himself “the Bread of Life,” after all (John 6:35). There is no greater abundance of grain than when Christ is its giver – and so there is bread made from grain on our altar this morning, enough for all. Down through the centuries, Christ's name has been proclaimed over and over again by those ordained to invoke his blessing, and his voice speaking through them names this fruit of grain as his own sacred body, given for the life of the world. In offering his body as food and his lifeblood as drink, King Jesus openly hosts a royal feast of blessing to make us flourish and blossom in every city and every country. Jesus is, as he said, “the food that endures to eternal life. … If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. … Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:27, 51, 56).
How much difference would it make, then, if we shook off our humdrum attitudes about it, refusing to see only a tiny token, a subjective symbol, a morning snack? If Magi eyes can see a baby and recognize God, can we recognize him in the bread and in the cup, accepting by faith that the Lord God may well be here to “do wondrous things” (Psalm 72:18)? What could be more wondrous than a miracle in our midst? What could better proclaim his name, in his death and resurrection, until he comes again (1 Corinthians 11:26)? May this whole earth be filled, in the eating and the drinking, with his glory (Psalm 72:19)! Bringing our tribute before him, we walk away filled with a much grander gift: “spiritual food and drink and eternal life.”8 Amen.
1 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 78.1, in Selections from the Fathers of the Church 3:120.
2 E.g., Ignatius of Antioch, Ephesians 19.2-3, in Loeb Classical Library 24:239; Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus 1.60, in Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge University Press, 1953), 55.
3 Tertullian of Carthage, Against Marcion 3.13, in Ernest Evans, Tertullian: Adversus Marcionem (Oxford University Press, 1972), 209.
4 Elise Vernon Pearlstine, Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance (Yale University Press, 2022), 12.
5 Elise Vernon Pearlstine, Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance (Yale University Press, 2022), 20-21.
6 Elise Vernon Pearlstine, Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance (Yale University Press, 2022), 13.
7 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 202.2, in Works of Saint Augustine III/6:92; see also Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus 1.60, in Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge University Press, 1953), 55; and Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary on Matthew 1.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 125:46.
8 Didache 10.3, in Loeb Classical Library 24:433.
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