Innocence – A Christmas Story – part 3

As time passed the events of those few days faded in my memory. For the first few days I would take them out, polish them up and play them over again in my head, hoping to hear again the words that had been told to me, and picture the glories of what I had seen. But then came the soldiers. They asked us for the baby born to be king, and when we did not tell them, because we did not know, they carried out their terrible task to pull from each screaming mother any baby boy aged two years or under, and kill him. That included my baby brother. He was torn from my mother’s grasp while soldiers held her and father to stop them from interfering, while one man took his sword, and with a look for confirmation from the centurion killed my brother. When they let mother go she ran screaming to his lifeless body and threw herself over him as if she could give him life again. Father would have fought with the soldiers, but one held a sword at my older brother’s throat and promised that if he saw him try anything funny, he would come back and kill him as well. Father looked into his eyes and saw the truth of what he said, and with difficulty held himself in check. I ran to him and put my arms around him. The family tableau, mother, father and children, alive and dead holding each other up watched the soldiers march away watched by the rest of the guests in the caravansery.

As time passed the birth and the death became more dream like, a tangled dream in which I joined the Messiah’s army, poor woman that I am, and fought the hated Romans at the gates of Jerusalem. I heard about the prophet Jesus of Nazareth, and waited eagerly to see if he was the man. To see whether the word of the prophets was going to be fulfilled in him. The name was certainly right, but there were many men called Jesus. But this one was a healer and preacher of the word of Yahweh, he was not a king coming with a mighty army. I didn’t see him when he briefly came to Nazareth. I was busy running the caravanserai then with my husband and children. Not that I would have recognised the baby in the man. As it was I didn’t see my baby Jesus again until the day he died. But that is another story.

Innocence – A Christmas Story – part 2

But that wasn’t the only strange thing that happened in those few days. As is our custom Mary and Joseph went on the eighth day to Jerusalem to have Jesus circumcised, according to the law. After Mary’s purification they took him to the Temple to present him, before returning back to us. It is only a half day’s walk to Jerusalem from Bethlehem. I think they were going to stay just another two or thee days to make sure Jesus was still well enough to travel, then they were to return home. Then star appeared that night over the stable again. Father noticed it on his final round of the walls. By this time most people had set off to return to their own homes, so the caravanserai felt very empty. Mary and Joseph had remained in the stable as it was quieter for the baby. But the star reappearing had father worried that the shepherds would appear again, so he set an extra watchman on the walls that night. What trotted past our walls was not a whole lot of drunken shepherds, but some rich travellers on camels. Like the shepherds they seemed to know where they were going. Straight to see the baby in the stable under the star. This time I went with father and mother and a few of our men, well armed with knives. The sight that met our eyes was extraordinary. Outside our little stable were three exotic men obviously from the East, keeping watch over six camels. They pulled out great knives as we approached, and I thought that there was going to be a battle, but at a call from one of the men, Joseph came out with a richly dressed man, and thanked father and the men for coming again, but everything was alright. These men had seen the star in the east and had followed it here, to come and worship at the feet of a new powerful king. They had not expected to find a baby, but this baby was what they had come all this way to see. Father sent the men back to watch the caravanserai, and he, mother, I and my older brother entered and sat, at the request of the eastern travellers. At the feet of the baby lying in his cradle were ornate carved wooden boxes, open to show their contents, gold, more than I had seen before or since, frankincense and myrrh, which we saw a lot of being carried by passing traders, and fabulously expensive, here overflowing on to the floor.

And then in my innocence I asked those questions no adult can ask.
‘Why have these men come to see this baby? My baby brother looks better than he does, and he has one tooth.’
There was a silence in the stable, then the mother, Mary, spoke up.
‘Do you listen when you go to Synagogue to the readings from Torah and the Prophets? Well, if you do, you will know that every so often the prophets tell us that a Messiah is coming. The prophets are people who have come close to Yahweh. They didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, and neither do I. I do know that an angel called Gabriel came to me and asked me to be the mother of Yahweh’s son.’ (At this point all the adults took a deep breath in, apart from Mary’s husband who was nodding his head gently as she told her story) ‘I didn’t have much time to think about my answer.’ she continued ‘I was only betrothed to Joseph then, so I didn’t know how Yahweh would accomplish it. I thought about the shame I would bring to my parents, (Lots of adult nodding of heads here) about how much I would hurt Joseph (Here he held out his hand and caught hers in his large calloused one) and whether I would be stoned to death for adultery.’
‘What is adultery?’ I asked
But my mother shushed me. I opened my mouth to ask why they wouldn’t answer my question, but mother gave me one of her looks which promised a smack if I kept on about it, so I turned to listen to the story again.
‘I thought about what the angel said. Thought about how much I love Yahweh, so then I said ‘Yes’ to him. I would have Yahweh’s baby. I had heard, as you have heard, that the prophets tell us that the Messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem. The angel never said that we had to go to Bethlehem. Neither did Yahweh say that to Joseph when he met him in a dream when he assured him that I was carrying his baby and had not committed adultery.’
I opened my mouth again, but mother fixed her steely eye on me and I shut it. I would have to ask later when nobody was around.
Mary continued
‘I had no idea that this baby might be Yahweh’s promised Messiah, just his son. Then came the news of the census, and Joseph told me that we would have to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem. So I began to wonder. It is not a good thing to have to make a long journey when you are pregnant. You remember how big your mother was when she was expecting your baby brother? So I walked until my feet ached and my ankles swelled up, then I sat on the donkey until I couldn’t cope with being kicked by the baby and jogged by the donkey, so I would walk again. I walked and rode, and rode and walked for five days to get here. We didn’t think we would get here in time, as it was we only just made it to Bethlehem before it was dark. You remember that by the time we knocked on your father’s gate, it was very late indeed, and this was because we could find nowhere else in the whole of the town to stay. You have heard the story of the shepherds and the story of these wise men. The rest you know, because you have been here, you have seen with your own eyes.’
‘What is going to happen now?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know’ Mary replied. ‘Yahweh is only gradually revealing his plans to us all, as the days pass. I expect I shall find out soon enough what he wants next. I am slowly learning what it is that Yahweh wants from me. I am sure that it will take a lifetime to learn. I think it is time now for you to go to bed. I need to clean up baby Jesus, he has got rather smelly while we have been talking.’
‘You mean he has shit himself,’ I said ‘My brother does that as well’.
At which point my mother leapt up, grabbed my arm and began to pull me out of the stable all the time hissing at me in a loud whisper
‘You shouldn’t say things like that’
‘Why not?’ I said ‘It is true!’
‘Yes, but you don’t talk about it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I said so’.
And as this was the final answer to any argument between us, I had to let it go. I would go back in the morning and talk to Mary. Maybe she would give me a straight answer. She had so far. But when I went back in the morning, Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus and the Kings, their camels and servants had all gone, slipped away in the night, leaving just a small pile of gold in payment, which I took to my father.

Innocence – A Christmas Story – part 1

I have often talked about it with my friends. For them also, that baby’s birth made a big impression on all of us. The birth itself would have left a mark on us, but the aftermath left a scar which has never really healed. Because of that baby I lost my brother, because of that baby, just about every family in the town, and we were all mostly closely related, we all lost a baby boy, and for why?

The story begins with a journey. It is not one that I had to make. I am an Inn Keepers daughter, so travellers came to me and my family’s caravansery. My parents knew that at that time we were going to be busy. They had seen the notices hammered up around the town. There was to be a census, and everyone was to be registered at the family town. Our Bethlehem was the family town of the great King David, so kin from around the country were going to descend on us. The town planned. The elders discussed. My mother and the other women got on with doing what needed to be done. Food, water and shelter for an unknown number of people and animals, for several days.

I might only have been six years old, but I had my jobs around the caravansery, and I got on with them as the place steadily filled up with more men, women children, horses, donkeys and camels than I had ever seen before. I don’t know why our outer stone walls did not bow out with everyone walking, talking, sleeping and cooking together inside, waiting for the appointed day and appointed hour of the census. As well as those coming for the census we had our regular guests, travelling from the south to Jerusalem, from the North down to Egypt, or west to the coast of the great sea. We tried to keep everyone happy, but even my father with all his store of tact and patience became rather short tempered.

So it was as night was falling, with the cock was letting us know, as if we didn’t know already, that it was time to damp down the fires and try to sleep, that there came a knock at the gate. Father charged past.
‘Not one more person can I fit in here, no matter what story they have to tell or how much money they offer me.’ he puffed.
He flung open the door, and before the man could say a thing he said
‘Sorry, there is no room at the Inn’.
Father bent and deftly fielded a small child who was trying to toddle out of the door, and handed him back to his mother. Just as the door was almost shut the man outside said desperately,
‘My wife is having a baby. We have tried everywhere else, there is no place for us to go. She can’t have the baby out here surrounded by the wild animals. We will never survive.’
Father opened to door a bit more and peered around. I peered around him, having come to see what was going on. There on the ground was a young woman with a very large bump, which she was rubbing, obviously in pain. Father took one look and yelled for mother. They had a quick conversation, then mother stepped outside the door to help lift the woman to her feet. She turned to me and told me to bring some hot water and rags to the stable cave, out in the field where we kept our own sheep and oxen, then she led the woman away crooning to her all the while,
‘It will be alright’.
The man followed silently, leading their donkey.

I didn’t see the baby actually being born. Mother kept sending me back for things she had forgotten. At last when I returned there was a blue faced naked baby bawling away. There was nothing wrong with his lungs. As I watched, mother expertly showed the new mother how to cut the cord, and then rub baby over with salt and oil, just as I had seen her do with my baby brother when he was born, then she wrapped him in the swaddling clothes that the woman, whose name I gathered was Mary, had brought with her. Mother held out the baby to Mary, and showed her how to latch him on to her breast. He started to suck hard, and Mary screwed up her face in pain. Mother laughed,
‘Don’t worry’ she said. ‘He needs to do that to bring down the milk. Your body will get used to it, and he will get more expert as well. It will become a pleasant experience for you both, but probably not tonight. What are you going to call him? Joseph after his father? No, Jesus? That is a nice name. Welcome to the world Jesus ben Joseph.’

Mother and I returned to the caravansery and I headed straight to bed. I was so tired. Mother headed to give my brother his last feed, before she too went off to sleep. Father had set a servant to patrol the walls, and another to keep an eye out for less than honest travellers packed in the courtyard who might want to take advantage of the large numbers of people staying that night.

I had not long been asleep when there was a shout from the watch on the wall. Looking out over the fields he shouted he could see a light, a big light, as if there was a fire somewhere up in the hills. When some of the men got up to join him on the wall, the light had gone. Father was just cursing him for a fool, when someone pointed to the sky where a huge star had appeared, and seemed to be hovering over the entrance to our stable cave in the fields.
One of the men on the wall cupped his hands to his ears and said
‘I can hear voices and shouting and running’.
Father shouted at everyone to be quiet, and the sounds came clearly to the men on the wall. We were just about to be attacked. Father rang the bell, men picked up their knives, father distributed spears, bows and arrows to the servants, women gathered their children to them and the animals got in the way. Torches were lit, and the men on the wall watched and waited. But the attack did not come, it passed us by. The feet, the shouting, and strangely the singing, passed us by. It seemed to be heading to our stable. There was a sigh of relief and people began to relax, then mother shouted up to father
‘What about Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus?’
Father pointed to several of the men who looked as if they would be good in a fight.
‘Come with me’, he roared.
He opened the gate and ran out, followed by the men carrying torches. Mother closed the gate behind him, and people started to drift up on to the walls to see whether they could see what was going on. But there was no sound of fighting coming to us over the clear night air. Eventually we could see a line of torches straggling back across the fields. Recognising father among them, mother threw open the gates into the courtyard.
‘What just happened,’ she asked.
‘It was a whole lot of drunken shepherds. They claimed they had seen a tear in the sky and angels singing, telling them that a baby who is to be the saviour of the world had been born in Bethlehem. A star would show them where. By the time we got there they were offering gifts of lambs to Mary and Joseph. What are they going to do with them – drive them all the way back to Nazareth? We hustled them out, although Mary and Joseph seemed more bemused than frightened by them. I told them not to come back again, but they were so happy to have seen the baby that they promised like lambs – like lambs- get it!’ Mother just looked stony faced at him. After all her worry of the last few hours it appeared that that was one joke too many.

The Grumpy Gardener makes a decision – part 2

A few days after the ascension story broke over Jerusalem, I was walking through the streets towards one of the meeting places of the Apostles, Rabbi Jesus’ closest followers, to sit and listen to the stories they were to tell of him to those who gathered, when I heard to cry of ‘fire’. I began to run towards the cries to see whether I could help. In a place where houses are built so close together a fire could kill many many people. As I skidded round the corner into the open area I was heading for, a door slammed open and a group of men dashed out from one of the houses. Just for an instance it looked as if they had tongues of flame licking at their hair. I looked away from them to see if I could see some water anywhere, but when I looked back, the fire had gone. I stopped in astonishment. I blinked and looked again. I must have imagined what I had just thought I had seen. The men who had exited so precipitately milled around for a few minutes talking and laughing, and a man next to me turned to go muttering that he wasn’t going to stand around watching a whole lot of drunk men make fools of themselves at this hour of the morning.

One of the men, whom I recognised as Peter, must have had the ears of a cat, for he turned sharply and said ‘We are not drunk, at least,’ he amended, ‘we have had nothing alcoholic to drink. We have just been touched by the Holy Spirit of Yahweh, we have been filled to overflowing with words to speak and stories to tell.’ Then the men began to flow out into the crowd that was gathering, and began to talk to small groups of the people standing and watching open mouthed at what was happening. One of the men, Andrew I think it was, came to where I was standing and began to talk. For the first time I heard my own language on the lips of a man from Galilee. I stood astonished as he praised and glorified Yahweh in my tongue. After a while I looked around at the faces of the other people milling around. There were many people there swarming in to the area to find out what was happening. As well as natives of Jerusalem there were merchants, travellers and soldiers from all corners of the Roman Empire gathered in that small square of land in Jerusalem, an insignificant city on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. Moving among us were a group of men who were, as I realised with a shock, talking to each one of us in our own language. I recognised odd words floating up into the air from a number of tongues I have tried to learn. I turned away from what Andrew was saying, and listened to other men talking, both Apostles and hearers. All were astonished at what was happening.

Eventually as one might expect, a large contingent of soldiers arrived in full military uniform. They took aggressive positions around the perimeter of the area, but one of the soldiers who had been off duty and had found himself in the square as things began to happen, went to the commanding officer and gave an explanation to him. I have no idea what he can have said to explain what was happening before our eyes, but after looking suspiciously at us all, he shouted at us to move along and go back to our homes. The soldiers moved aside to let us all disperse back to where we had all come from.

No matter what the soldiers had wanted, a few hours later a crowd, bigger than this mornings gathered in the Court of the Gentiles in the Temple, where once again Rabbi Jesus followers had gathered. As well as praising God, the Apostles were now preaching and teaching, and moving among the crowd laying hands on the sick, and healing them in the name of Jesus. They called on the crowd to repent and to be baptised in the name of Jesus. So the crowds moved to the pool of Siloam, and thousands of them came to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus and were baptised by the Apostles. Including me.

Jerusalem was in a ferment for weeks. Peter and John were arrested by the Sanhedrin for healing a crippled beggar. They preached Jesus message to the Sanhedrin, with such fluency that those learned men were astonished that simple men from Galilee could talk in such an authoritative way about Yahweh. As the crippled beggar was also standing before them complete and whole, and giving thanks to Yahweh in Jesus name, there wasn’t a lot they could do, so they released them all.

Many of those who had first heard the Good News on the day of Pentecost returned to their own lives and their own countries. For the last few months I have spent as much time as I could in the Temple and privately sitting at the feet of the Apostles, along with many others, who like me were utterly captivated by the message of Jesus. I know that I have neglected my garden, and my master is now questioning my commitment to him and it. I am torn about what I must do next. I know that Rabbi Jesus thought my garden to be a piece of heaven on earth, and I feel that I should preserve it in his memory. But the Apostles believe that he will be returning to earth again, soon, to establish Yahweh’s kingdom here on earth. Believers here are now living and sharing all things together. I have little enough to share, but what I have is shared with all. The Apostles have commissioned from among our number believers to help look after the growing number of believers in Jerusalem and further afield. Some of the Apostles have already left to travel as the spirit wills to preach the Good News. I feel now that I must return to my own country. I believe that the Spirit is leading me to go and preach and teach, but I am a gardener. My words are in the beauty of my plants and the arrangement of them in my garden. Peter tells me that he is only a simple fisherman from Galilee, but when he wants words he calls upon the power of the Holy Spirit to help him say what is in his heart. If the spirit is moving me to return home, then the spirit will give me the words to say. So I have a decision to make, to stay or to go. Help me Lord Jesus to do what you want me to do. Amen. So be it.

The Grumpy Gardener makes a decision – part 1

I have a decision to make, a really hard decision that will affect the rest of my life. I thought that leaving my own country to come here to Jerusalem to make a garden was a big decision. Then it was the adventure of it that drew me, and the knowledge that I was skilled and able enough to do what was being asked of me. I also liked my new master, and knew that we could be friends as well as master and employee. This time I am making a decision to do something about which I really do not feel skilled enough, to go to unknown places where I may not be received warmly, and may even demand my life. Still, I am contemplating my decision.

This part of my life’s story began the day my garden, or rather my master’s garden, near the city walls of Jerusalem was invaded by a group of men searching for palm branches to lay on the path before their teacher, Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth. They stripped my palm trees, trampled my beds of flowers and hopped back over the wall. Rabbi Jesus later came himself to apologise for the damage caused. My master gave me the opportunity to sit and talk with him, as he himself had done several times. I was captivated by this kind and gentle man who talked so eloquently and with love about his God, Yahweh, a God I had been learning about since arriving in this country. Always before, Yahweh was spoken about with awe and power – a god of rules, and anger if you broke them. I was devastated when only a few days after our talk Rabbi Jesus was taken by the Temple Guards, tried, condemned to death, and nailed to a cross at Golgotha, the place of the skull, the execution area just outside the city walls. But that was not the end of the story for on the third day of his death, stories began to be circulated that Rabbi Jesus had risen from the dead, and had been seen by his followers. I didn’t believe them until I spoke to one of his followers, by the name of Thomas. Then I believed.

The weeks after talking to Thomas seemed to pass slowly. Most of Rabbi Jesus followers had left Jerusalem after his death. Despite their absence stories and more stories were circulating, and the authorities began to try to clamp down on the rumours and whispers. But it was like trying to stop water from running through a hole in a pipe. The harder they tried, the more stories burst out in other places; in the market, on street corners, at the gates of the city, by the water wells, whispered in peoples homes and it was rumoured, even in the palace of Herod Antipas himself.

Then on the fortieth day after his death, with what seemed like a great clap of thunder breaking over Jerusalem, the story that Rabbi Jesus had said goodbye to his disciples and ascended into heaven was being talked about everywhere and by everyone. So the story went, he had met with a few of his closest followers in Bethany, a village on the Mount of Olives. He then blessed them all and was taken up into heaven. That much all the accounts agreed on. After that, depending on which story you heard, he might have just disappeared up through the clouds or followed in the example of one of the prophets, hopped into a great chariot with four horses, and been driven up into heaven. Some of the stories were even more outrageous than that. What had definitely happened was that the followers of Rabbi Jesus reappeared in Jerusalem and were seen every day in the Temple praising and glorifying Yahweh. The authorities were very loathe to do anything about them. Praising Yahweh could not be considered as a crime, even if the joyousness of their praises was infectious in a way that the solemn worship and sacrifices of the priests was not. People came to watch and see and the numbers coming to the Temple increased daily.