Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

They bore their offerings of Gold,
Frankincense and Myrrh
To lay at His baby feet.
They in all their royal splendour; He in a
hovel.
In swaddling clothes; with disturbed
lowing cattle
for trumpet and fanfare. He the promised
Messiah!
Yet He too a king; in strange
circumstances. The disparity!
Did it manifest itself to them, it was a
wasted journey!
Or did they realize the facade of their
regality and their gifts.
Did they understand the symbolism of
their gifts?
Of glory, priestly sacrifice, and bitterness
A precursor of what was yet to be?
And we! With our fanfare and trumpet and
the glitter and the gold
Hail His birth; forgetting the frankincense
and the myrrh
The offeror and the offering. The sacrificial
victim.
And the bitterness of that bitter perfume
That pervades the lives of those like Him
In our midst.