SCRIPTURE:
11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Matthew 2:11
GIFT
Did Jesus have a head start?
We know from the Gospels that Jesus was poor, but what about this gift of gold, frankincense and myrrh? How valuable were they? Those are questions that we ought to ask ourselves as we read this text. Maybe Jesus was more like middle class. This gift of gold surely benefitted him financially. Historically, frankincense and myrrh were actually worth more than gold. What do we make of this? Well I want to tell you the story of Rosie, our cousin.
Rosie is a little girl that Charity’s cousins adopted. She comes from a troubled past and now she lives with a family that is upper middle class. There’s this picture on the wall of Rosie on her first birthday with cake and icing coming out of her mouth. When I looked at that picture the first thing I thought of was, “abundance.” This little girl was saved from a very troubled life. She could have experienced poverty at it’s worst levels and here she is experiencing the complete opposite. She has so much now. She will be able to do so much. She will likely see the world. Her parents love traveling. From South Africa to Thailand, and other epic trips - they love seeing the world. I told her dad, “You are blessing this girl tremendously. She is going to eat the best foods in the world and see the beauty of this world. She will experience abundance.” He said, “Thanks Man.”
For someone like me, and many others, we didn’t always experience abundance. I personally grew up poor so now that I am lower middle class I look around at everything I have and think that I have so much.
I have abundance. I have too much.
So I told her dad, “Be careful that your child doesn’t only know abundance. Because there are lessons that poverty teaches you that you can’t learn when you’re privileged.” And it’s true. Now that I experience an abundant life, I can tell you that poverty taught me so much.
In some ways as a Pastor, I have taken a vow of poverty yet I experience so many blessings. If anything, growing up poor gave me perspective. And experiencing abundance now gave me perspective. So this is why it’s important whether Jesus grew up poor or middle class.
It changes the perspective.
Maybe his ministry was all about the poor because he was poor and knew the struggle.
Maybe he was lower middle class later in his life and wanted to help the lower class.
Maybe Jesus was a politician and just wanted to run for mayor to help the poor? Lol
The Bible does teach us that God knew the power he had, knowing he had all things, but yet made himself nothing.
So I think it’s both.
Jesus knew he had everything and he wanted to help those who did not. All that to say….Perspective matters.
Consider yours. And consider the ones you don’t have.