The Jesse Tree

by Geraldine McCaughrean

  “Ah! but this shepherd of mine, he’s not just the Christmas shepherd.”

  “He isn’t?”

  “No! When Jesus had grown into a man, he called himself the ‘Good Shepherd’. He told a story about a shepherd with a big flock – a hundred sheep. Seems this shepherd loved his sheep so much that when just one went missing, he went out and searched and searched until he found it and brought it safe home. ‘I am that good shepherd.’ That’s what Jesus said. He was trying to explain how he’d come to look after people – to rescue those who were lost. And whenever he explained anything, he used a story.”

  “So Jesus told stories, too.”

  Mr Butterfield was deep in thought. “Huh? Ooh, yes. He was forever telling stories! Stories about sheep, stories about parties; stories about money and friends; finding things, losing things… I suppose he grew up listening to the same stories I’ve been telling you, and it made a storyteller out of him. Besides… how could I leave out the shepherds? They were witnesses! They were there! They saw what happened!”

  “So,” said the boy. “Make me see.”

  THE CUNNING AND THE WISE

  “Look up, then,” said the carpenter, and they both bent their heads back, to examine the roof above them. High in the vaulted ceiling, the plaster was peeling and an area of black damp spread from one corner. “What’s beyond the roof?”

  “The sky.”

  “And what’s beyond the sky?”

  “Space. Planets. The stars.”

  “Exactly,” breathed Mr Butterfield. “It’s been the same ever since people had eyes to look. Same constellations, same galaxies. But supposing one night you looked up and saw a new star…”

  “A supernova, you mean?”

  “Or a comet, or an intergalactic meteorite skipping over the earth’s atmosphere – doesn’t matter which. Just suppose this brand new twinkling pinpoint of light looked you in the eye… and winked.”

  The two uncricked their necks and stared at one another. And the carpenter began a new story …

  Far away in the East, three astronomers uncricked their necks and stared at one another. “A new star? What does it mean?” said Caspar.

  “An omen!” said Melchior, eyes full of starlight.

  “Saddle the camels!” said Balthazar. “We must go and see for ourselves. Someone’s been born who’s going to change the history of the world!”

  The three scholars took their bearings from the new star and travelled west. Their camels waded through rivers, struggled over sand dunes, spat at robbers lurking in the dark. During the day, the three sheltered from the sun and from sand-storms, biting mosquitoes, knife-edged winds. But every night they rode on, led by the star, clutching gifts for the newborn king. For surely, someone whose coming warranted a new star in the sky must be an emperor or a king.

  Riding into Jerusalem at long last, they made for the palace, of course, and explained their mission to the king who lived there. “Where is the new king whose birth we have seen written in the stars?” they asked. “We’ve come a long way to pay our respects to him!”

  King Herod only ruled in Israel by permission of the Romans. But he clung on grimly to his crown and his throne and his little bit of power. Now, a pang of anger went through him like an arrow; he knew of no such birth. New king? New king? he thought to himself. I am the only king of the Jews!

  But to the three travellers he said, “I’m afraid I know nothing of this star-child. When you find him, please come back and tell me, so that I, too, may… pay my respects.” Under the folds of his robe, his fingers toyed with a dagger in its jewelled sheath. These three scholars might be wise in the ways of the night sky, but Herod had cunning enough to snuff out that star of theirs …

  “You’d need very long arms to snuff out a star,” said the boy.

  Mr Butterfield nodded. “And Herod might have been a big, important man, but inwardly he was small-minded, and small-minded people never reach the stars.”

  Much to the astonishment of Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, the star finally came to rest over the small town of Bethlehem. The roads were so narrow that the camels had to move in single file. Somewhere a dog barked. The three wondered if they hadn’t made some terrible mistake along the way. What an exotic sight they must have been for anyone out late that night: three men outlandishly dressed, gabbling in a foreign language and pointing at the stars. What strange noises the innkeeper and his customers must have heard as they turned over in their beds: camels groaning and belching and slumping down onto their knees.

  What a strange night for Mary: three dust-stained, wealthy foreigners thrusting gifts at her and the baby. What a strange discovery for the astronomers: weary, working people, a baby in a feed box, the nervy animals stepping from hoof to hoof. And yet, for this moment, fire had kindled in the distant galaxies, and careered across the night sky to announce the birth of a king!

  Mary took the presents: a bag of foreign gold, a box of frankincense. (She had smelled the scent before on the hair and clothes of Cousin Zechariah after a day spent inside God’s Temple.) Lastly, the visitors presented a jar of myrrh.

  The chisel slipped, sinking its blade into the carpenter’s left palm.

  “You’ve hurt yourself!”

  “It’s nothing,” said Mr Butterfield. But blood welled up in the cut and fell onto his work – onto the half-carved manger. They both watched it redden the wood.

  “An odd gift for a baby – myrrh,” said Mr Butterfield, licking his cut. “It’s for the dead, you know. An ointment used to anoint dead people… But then that’s why he came, you see? That little baby. Once he was grown up, Jesus did a lot of important things. But most important of them all was dying.”

  They both looked up at the stained-glass window above them: a green hill, a brown cross, a man who was Jesus, spilling his blood to wash away all the wrongs in the world.

  “It’s like you said once,” Mr Butterfield recalled. “Jesus was like the sheep who died in place of Isaac. He was like that offering on Elijah’s altar. He was God’s ultimate rescue plan!”

  “He was like David slaying the big bad giant!”

  “He was the way back to Paradise Garden!”

  “He was the ram God gave to Abraham!”

  Their hands brushed as they pointed to different symbols on the Jesse tree, remembering all the stories they had shared.

  “He’s Once-upon-a-time and The End!” said Mr Butterfield.

  They sat down breathless, their backs against the trunk of the Jesse tree.

  “I’m sorry you hurt your hand.”

  “Don’t worry about it, son. Tree’s all but finished, isn’t it? All but done. I’ll mend, don’t you fret. I’ll mend. But talking of blood… I haven’t finished telling you about King Herod.”

  ANGELS

  Mr Butterfield groaned as he tried to make himself comfortable. Then he began.

  Herod waited and waited, digging his dagger into the arm of his throne, ruining the gilded woodwork. Where were those three astronomers? As soon as they returned, he would know where to find that newborn brat. He already knew how to stop it ever stealing his crown… Tchk, tchk went the dagger’s blade into the arm of his chair…

  Gathering up their memories, brushing the straw off their robes, Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar camped outside Bethlehem and lay gazing up at the dancing constellations. Happy and weary, they quickly fell asleep.

  Suddenly – soft as sheep’s wool, white as sheet lightning – an angel came swooping into their dreams. “Don’t go back to Jerusalem! Don’t tell King Herod what he wants to know! He would kill the child, not worship at his cradle. Go home! Go home another way!”

  So that’s what they did, urging their camels into a gallop, cutting their pack mules loose. Caspar was in such a panic to obey the angel that he never stopped to wonder how Melchior and Balthazar had come to dream the selfsame dream at the selfsame moment. They simply fled, offering up prayers for that helpless little child, to the glittering,
frosty stars.

  The angel meanwhile turned back, flying through the dreams of all Bethlehem that night until he reached the sleeping Joseph. He had a second message, this time for the carpenter from Nazareth: “Get up, Joseph! You are not safe. King Herod wants the child dead. Make for Egypt, and stay there until the danger is past!”

  So that’s what Joseph did. The sight probably didn’t cause much of a stir: a little family group, with their donkey, crossing an unmarked border into the Egyptian wilderness. They glanced back from time to time for signs they were being followed, but mostly they looked ahead. Hanging from the saddle’s pommel were a pot of gold, a box of incense and a jar of myrrh. Cradled in Mary’s arms was the Saviour of the world.

  They would get by, Joseph comforted himself. God would take care of everything… And anyway, a good carpenter can pick up work anywhere.

  “You must carve an angel,” said the boy.

  “I don’t know. There’ll be a star – here – right at the very top.”

  “Oh, but you have to put in God’s postman. There, look. He’ll just fit, if you carve him small.”

  “Very well. No one seems to know how big angels are. In fact philosophers have been arguing about it for years. Just here, do you mean? As if he’s in the stable?”

  “Well, of course he was. All the angels went along there after they left the shepherds. Millions of them! To take a look. Wouldn’t you?”

  If Mr Butterfield wondered how anyone could be so sure, he was too busy to ask – too busy planning the final feature of his crowded Jesse tree.

  THE BRIGHTEST STAR

  “Finished!” Mr Butterfield lifted the sandpaper from the star. “The brightest star,” he said under his breath. “God’s brightest star.”

  His job of work was finished, and it pleased him. The woodcarving flourished in the church now like a living tree, its branches crowded with animals, signs and symbols. It was almost like a Christmas tree decked with ornaments, all rising towards the Christmas star. A year-round Christmas tree. A lifelong Christmas tree, you might almost say.

  He wished the boy could see it. But the boy was gone. Either his holiday had ended or he had guessed the stories were at an end. “I could always have told him the other stories,” said Mr Butterfield sadly to himself. “There are so many…” But there would be no more wet dogs, no more little brothers, no more ice creams or awkward questions, no more demands to “Tell me!”

  Mr Butterfield had never thought he could miss anything so much.

  There again, lots of visitors came to the church, especially in the summer: plenty of trippers, dozens of children… The thought lifted his flagging spirits.

  Tipping linseed oil into a rag, he began to polish: the sitting camel, Jacob’s ladder, Joseph’s sandals… It was only when he came to the angel – only as he oiled the outstretched arm, the little open hand, the cheeky smile – that he saw it. It gave his heart the oddest jolt.

  For there was the boy’s face! Without realizing it, he must have shaped the brow, the jaw, the lips and created a perfect likeness.

  Tell me, the mouth seemed to say. Make me see!

  Mr Butterfield sat down at the foot of his Jesse tree. “Well, blow me down!” he whispered up at the glossy angel. “Who would’ve thought it?”

  No, now he looked at it, the mouth was not asking for a story at all, but telling one. “Once upon a time…” To everyone who came now and stood looking with idle curiosity at the Jesse tree, wondering what stories hung ripening among its branches, this little face would speak.

  If only they had the ears to listen.

  “Go ahead, lad. It’s your turn. Tell me. Make me see,” said Mr Butterfield to the angel. “I’m listening now.”