What does incense symbolise in Christianity?

Answer 1

Incense, like many other elements of Christian faith and worship, has more than one meaning. There are two primary aspects of its use, however:

1) The offering of incense indicates the lifting up of prayer to God. In the service of Vespers, while the church is being censed, verses from Psalm 141 are sung: "Let my prayer come before You as incense; the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice" (vs. 3). Thus the rising of the smoke of incense reminds worshippers of the offering of prayer (and, by extension, the whole person) to God as a "sweet smelling sacrifice" -- the "sacrifice of praise" (Hebrews 13:15).

2) The presence of incense speaks of the presence of God, and indicates the holiness, the sanctification, of everything by His presence. One is reminded of the "pillar of cloud and pillar of fire" which led Israel out of the Egyptian bondage through the wilderness to the Promised Land (cf. Exodus 13:21, Numbers 14:14). In Christian worship (particularly in Eastern Orthodox practice), everything in the church is censed: the altar, the icons, the whole temple and the people (who are "living icons"), to indicate the presence of the Holy, and the sanctification of all by that presence.

As the above infers, the use of incense in Christian worship is a continuation of the worship of the people of God from the earliest times, as found throughout the Old Testament.