Incense

Often people have questions as to why we have incense in our church. Incense has deep biblical roots. In the Old Testament, the Lord commands incense to be used. So it's biblical, but didn't those Old Testament things pass away? Yes and no. This brings us to Jesus. When Jesus was born, the Wisemen brought three gifts. Two (frankincense and myrrh) were priestly gifts of incense. When Jesus died, we again encountered these things: Nicademius anointed Jesus' body with incense and a lot of it, anywhere between 70 and 100 pounds. When Jesus emerges alive, what do you suppose He smelled like? Jesus had just been lying in incense for three days.

This is what makes incense pleasing to God the Father. It is the smell of His Son. So when we pray and the Bible pictures our prayers going up before Him as incense (Psalms 141:2). What makes our prayers acceptable to God the Father? The intercession of His Son and our prayers bear the scent of Christ brought up to God and received by Him. Likewise, in the Divine Service, we use incense to mark where the congregation will encounter the living Christ. So every time we smell this, we're to think on Jesus, and we're going to say, that's where I'm going to find Him; I can smell Him. This is the scent of the Son.

-Pr. David Kind