Brilliant - Myrrh at Christmas

Welcome to An Exercise in the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up to date with what I'm writing. Alternatively, if you want to contact Peter in relation to issues of human sexuality, please use the contact form here. Thanks for visiting!

Christopher Howse in today’s Telegraph:

It is true that myrrh mixed with wine was offered to Jesus on the cross, and that Nicodemus provided myrrh and aloes to anoint his grave-clothes.

But the deathly associations of myrrh are turned upside-down when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary arrive at the tomb with their own spices after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning. Instead of finding a stone-cold tomb, they are met by an angel, who says, “He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”

It is this incident that makes the Nativity scene interesting. The myrrh is not just a proleptic reference to death but also to resurrection. This signpost pointing forward makes the stable at Bethlehem compendious in meaning.

Ooooooohhhhhhhhh………. I just got one of those tingly, “I never saw that in the Bible before” moments. Wooooot!!!! Myrrh is a prophecy not just of the cross but also of the empty tomb!!!! You are SO going to hear that from me on Christmas Morning (or should it wait till Epiphany?), together with “Infinite and also an infant”.