An Imaginative Retelling of the Christmas Story
Narrated by Gabriel, Joseph and Mary, Elizabeth, and the Innkeeper’s Wife
Installments are in reverse order; the latest to be posted is first on this page. To read earlier portions of the story, scroll down and also click on “Older posts” at the bottom of the page. To read a specific section, click on its title in the column at the right. To read all sections, enter the words Christmas story in the search box at the upper left and click on Search Blog.
MARY Finds the Incense and an Altar
It was so hard, living in Egypt. The customs, the language, the people themselves were all so different from what I was used to. When I marketed, I thought the women were all looking at me. I was sure that their low murmurs were a discussion of me. At the well, they did not even bother to hide their laughter. Were they laughing at something about me? All the everyday tasks that brought me into contact with other people became more and more difficult. I wanted to go into our little house, shut the door, and never go out again.
Joseph found odd jobs to do, bringing home a few coins to go with the dwindling supply in the gold coffer. He was able to make friends too, in spite of the language barrier. One day he brought home some distressing news he had heard about the districts surrounding Bethlehem.
Herod routinely disposed of anyone who got in the way of his ambitious reach for power, even those of his own family. The threat of a little boy who might one day grow up to depose him could be handled by simple extermination, he decided. Not being one to waste time, he had ordered, soon after our departure, the slaughter of all the male children from two years old and under. The very toddlers Jesus had played with in our little yard in Bethlehem were now dead. Our boy had been spared! The mothers I had marketed with, shared smart-baby stories with, were weeping inconsolably because their babies were gone. I had been spared! I was horrified by the gruesome tragedy, and a little ashamed of my spirit of complaining. I would try harder, I decided, to make the best of our enforced stay in Egypt.
Usually, it was Joseph who opened the box of coins, taking out a gold piece to pay for our rented house or to exchange for smaller coins I would use at the market. But one afternoon while he was away and the child was napping, I began to wonder just how many coins were left. How long will we be compelled to stay in this land? What will we do when the money is gone? How on earth can we manage then?
I reached as far back as I could on the shelf where the coins were kept, but I could only just touch the box with my fingertips. I dragged a stool to a spot directly in front of the shelf, and standing on the stool I could easily reach the little golden box. I put out my hand to open it, but stopped when I noticed the dusty jar beside it. The frankincense! One of the gifts brought by the Easterners who came to worship Jesus in Bethlehem! I had forgotten all about it.
I lifted the little vessel carefully and, cradling it in both hands took it to the table. I did not open it at first but just looked at it, my mind carrying me back to that day that seemed so very long ago. “Don’t sell this incense,” the giver had instructed me. “Use it.” What else had he said? I tried hard to remember.
“You understand what it means to be away from home.” Oh yes, I do understand! First in Bethlehem, far from my own home, far away from my mother when I brought forth my child. Then in this land of Egypt, so full of strange sights and sounds and smells.
“Your son too will know what it’s like to be a foreigner, a minority.” I pondered that. He’s just a little boy. He doesn’t know or care, does he, where he lives?
But wait! My little son lying there, sweet and soft, is the Son of the Highest. The angel Gabriel said he was the promised Holy One, the Son of God, and Cousin Elizabeth loudly proclaimed him “my Lord.” Then how can he be at home here or anywhere? How can he ever feel that he belongs to the world around him? Dear little boy, my heart aches for the loneliness, the rejection, the displacement you will surely one day feel. This must be what the traveler from the East meant when he gave us this gift.
I opened the jar carefully, so as not to spill any of the precious contents. A fresh, sweet fragrance filled the room. Incense. Other thoughts came rushing in. The altar of God. Prayer offered up to the Most High. With startling clarity, I remembered something else the visitor had said. “Wherever you are, you must be sure to make an altar.”
I covered my face with my hands, awed in the sudden presence of the Holy One. How long since I had truly humbled myself before the Lord God, how long since I had sung the praise He gave me, “My soul rejoices in You, O Lord! I am small and weak, but you are mighty and strong, and you have chosen to do wonderful things for me!” How long since I had repeated the commitment I whispered when Gabriel visited me, “Behold, I am the maidservant of the Lord! Let Him do in me whatever He will.” I had made no altar in Egypt.
I had lamented being a stranger in the land. I had felt displaced and homeless. But now, bowing in that sacred space, I knew I was not forsaken. God had entrusted to me a part of Himself; He was lying there in the crib. While my mind could hardly fathom such a thought, my heart felt, at last, safe and secure.
Not many days after, Joseph awoke me during the night. “An angel has come to me in a dream again,” he told me. “We can go back now to the land of Israel. Those who sought to take the life of our Child are dead.”
So once more we packed everything we could on the back of our donkey, and we trudged the many miles back to the land of our fathers. Had we chosen to settle in any of the little villages along the way, I could have declared it “home.” Wasn’t I carrying with me the incense to make a kitchen table into an altar? We could have returned to Bethlehem where we lived for the first few years of our life as a family, but God warned my husband in yet another dream to move beyond the territory where King Herod’s successor ruled. We came at long last back to our own region of Galilee. “Nazareth is a good place to raise a boy,” Joseph said with a smile. He looked relieved and happy.
Making a home in Nazareth was not easy for me, however. When I left, I was but a girl, albeit an expectant one and I’d never lived anywhere but in my parents’ home. Now I was a few years older, I was a wife, the mother of a growing boy, and responsible for my own home and family. It all seemed a bit strange, almost like being in a different Nazareth! I often took out the little jar of incense and looked at it, clinging to the truth I’d learned when we lived in Egypt. No place is “home” if there is not an altar of worship and commitment there.
And any place you do make that altar, I know now, your heart can find its home.
(The end)
MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)
Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment