An Imaginative Retelling of the Christmas Story
Narrated by Gabriel, Joseph and Mary, Elizabeth, and the Innkeeper’s Wife
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MARY Makes a Home in Bethlehem
Sometimes, while we lived in Bethlehem, I wept for my broken dreams. When Joseph asked my father for permission to marry me, I was so happy that I thought I would never have reason to cry again! I was full of hopeful dreams as I began preparing trunks full of beautiful woven cloth and fine wools. I braided ropes and made pots. All my thoughts were happy, hopeful ones of our future together—a future in which there was not a single dark cloud!
The announcement of the baby’s coming changed all of that, or at least put it out of my thinking temporarily. I began to plan for his arrival, but that was difficult because no one was glad with me. At least Joseph believed me, although it did take the visitation of an angel from the Lord.
I knew that after the baby was born, Joseph and I could make a good home together. I could just see it. He would work in his shop, and as the evening sun was setting, he would come down the street toward the house where our little son and I waited at the door with open arms. I would have prepared something delicious for our evening meal, and we would sit down to share it together in the circle of lamplight. Joseph would tell us about his day in the shop. Our son—and perhaps later other sons and daughters—would tell about playing games in the street, and about helping me bake the bread, and about the bird building a nest just outside the window. I would listen to them and smile, loving my little family with all of my heart. Oh, it was a beautiful dream!
And it was hard for me to give up that dream when Joseph said we must stay for awhile in Bethlehem. The first seven weeks, we stayed because we were so close to Jerusalem and Joseph thought it would simplify matters if we waited until my days of purification were over before we went back home. It would have been difficult to travel anyway, so soon after giving birth and with the baby himself so tiny and new.
While I longed to be in our own home in Nazareth, I trusted Joseph that it was best this way. I knew it had to be hard for him too, to work as a hired carpenter with borrowed tools when back home he had his own shop and was known for his craftsmanship. I kept my spirits up by reminding myself that soon we would be able to live a normal life.
By all standards, I guess, we were poor. When we prepared to go to the City to make the sacrifices required by the Law for a first-born son, I wept that we had no lamb to offer. Had we been living in our own home in Nazareth, I was sure we could have found some way to present the most desirable sacrifice—a lamb without blemish—as the ransom for the first-born who belongs wholly to the Lord. Two pigeons can be offered, the Law says, when a family cannot afford a lamb. Joseph assured me that the two birds he bought were, in the sight of God, an equally acceptable price for the buying back of our son.
But I grieved. Two fluttery gray birds was all this perfect child was worth? I would have redeemed him with a thousand perfect lambs! Joseph had to remind me again: the sacrifice is given to please God. That it doesn’t please us is of little consequence. If God is satisfied by what is offered, that is enough. I wiped my eyes and fashioned a little cage of slender willow branches for the birds.
I had fully expected to return to Nazareth as soon as our religious duties in Jerusalem were performed. “I don’t know exactly how to tell you this, Mary,” Joseph said when we were again in our little rented home. “I don’t think we should go back to Nazareth just yet.”
Not go back to Nazareth? I tried to conceal my disappointment, but Joseph touched my shoulder gently and added, “I’m sorry.” He sent word to a relative back home to close down the little carpenter shop or try to keep it open by hiring help, whichever seemed best. He himself worked when he could as an extra hand in the local shops. I settled down, as much as possible, in a house that was not my own in a city that I knew could never be home. I tried to be content, but I could not help always feeling just a little out of place.
The baby did not mind any of this a bit! He grew, alert and happy, into a delightful toddler who attracted people to our side wherever we went. However much I might feel like a stranger, Jesus did not, but smiled at everyone without discrimination and charmed one and all!
(To be continued)
MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)
Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com
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