You know, I've always heard of the use of incense in church. It was never in the church I grew up in, so it was a concept and a tradition that I was pretty unfamiliar with. UNTIL TODAY. I thought I'd finally check it out, and try to understand it. I never really grasped the point of it. My initial thoughts was that it was something to do with the Holy Spirit and the burning and smoke is supposed to symbolize some part of God's presence that we can sense but not necessarily see. I've grown up in a church where the use of burning candles was always an important symbol to represent the eternal flame of Jesus. It was to represent his presence in worship and his presence in our lives always. But incense just didn't makes sense to me. So I looked it up and here's what I learned...
Incense is intended to burn for the smell. And despite the common misconception, incense is the actual substance, not the aroma it produces. Pretty cool. It's used traditionally for religious ceremonies, ritual purification, aromatherapy, and meditation. And I was partially right in my assumptions from before, because incense is intended to create a spiritual atmosphere.
I also learned what I had always thought, but never been sure about: incense was a tradition as a part of the catholic church. It turns out that incense is also common in Orthodox and Anglican churches. Some new information to me was that it's also extremely common in eastern art, households, and religion. For instance, Japanese, Tibetan, and Indian cultures all use incense as well.
The wikipedia page explores incense in much more depth, so you should check it out!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incense
