She had been like any other happy young woman in Nazareth, the small town of southern Galilee where she had grown up. Betrothed to the man she loved, Joseph the carpenter and builder, she had been making plans for the time when she would enter his household as his bride. Joseph was a respected member of the community and its synagogue, and highly skilled in his trade. His ancestors had been woodworkers before him, and although, like Mary herself, he was proud of his blood kinship in one of the noblest lines of Israel, he would expect the sons she bore him to learn his trade, for a builder and worker in wood was always held in high regard.
It was true that Joseph was approaching middle age. But for Mary to marry a younger man and go to live in his father’s household would mean becoming practically the slave of an older woman. Mary was looking forward to having her own home. She did not consider the difference in their ages as a stumbling block to a happy marriage; as she was growing up in Nazareth, she had observed Joseph’s solid virtues, and she had been flattered when this worthy, capable carpenter had approached her father to arrange for the bride price, or mohar.
Mary had seen no reason to be frightened when, some ten courses of the moon previously, a stranger had appeared at her home in Nazareth and spoken to her. His bearing was regal; few such as he stopped in Nazareth. Still she had not thought of him as being other than mortal.
“Rejoice, highly favored one,” the stranger had greeted her courteously, even reverently. “The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women!”
Awed somewhat by the visitor’s language and manner, Mary had not answered. Besides, it was not fitting for a young unmarried woman to speak to a complete stranger.
“Do not be afraid, Mary,” the visitor had continued, “for you have found favor with God. Behold, you shall conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give to Him the throne of His father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.”
Mary could not remain silent any longer. “How can this be,” she said, “since I do not know a man?” For she was as yet only betrothed and still virgin.
“The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you,” the stranger explained. “Therefore the Holy One who is to be born shall be called the Son of God. Behold, your cousin Elisabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible.”
By now Mary had come to see that she was in the presence of no mere human being but of an emissary from God. She grasped only faintly as yet the greatness of the honor for which she had been selected, but she said obediently, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”
The angel had then disappeared, leaving her filled with wonder and something of fear also. It was true that she was of the bloodline of David, from which the ancient writings said a king, or at least the great spiritual leader to be called the Messiah, would one day come again in Israel. But she was the daughter of an artisan of meager means in Nazareth, and betrothed to a man of no great riches, a man not even well known except to the people who used his services and the products of his skilled hands. Was it not unthinkable that any son born of her should ever become king of Israel?
Her first impulse had been to tell Joseph what had happened, but she instinctively realized he would have had difficulty enough in believing the story even had he seen the angel and heard him speak. And, indeed, Mary herself could not help wondering now whether the man who had appeared to her had not been a creature of her own imagination rather than an angel sent by God to reveal the future to her.
She had gone about her duties with a troubled mind during the next several days. Nothing had happened to her body that she was able to detect, certainly nothing to give her reason to feel that she had conceived. Logic almost convinced her that the whole thing had been a dream, although the scene was as vivid in her memory as on the day when the stranger had appeared, and she still could not forget his convincing manner, or the reverence and respect with which he had greeted her.
Finally, knowing she must answer for herself the question of whether she had really seen an angel, Mary decided to do the one thing that, she was sure, could settle her doubts once and for all. The angel, if such he were, had said that her cousin Elisabeth had conceived. If Mary were to make the several days’ journey to Hebron where Elisabeth lived with her white-haired priest-husband Zacharias, and there found her kinswoman pregnant, as the visitor had stated, she could be sure this strange experience had been no mere fantasy.
As she thought about it, Mary remembered rumors that had been going about of a strange thing happening to Zacharias while he had been serving with one of the priestly “courses” as the groups assigned at intervals to help with the ritual of worship in the temple were called.
Temple service was an honor coveted by all priests of Israel and regular processions of them journeyed to Jerusalem periodically to fulfill the holy office. Zacharias, Mary had heard, while serving in the temple had been selected to burn incense on the altar in the Holy Place. His instructions were to bow down in worship as soon as the incense was kindled upon the coals, and then to withdraw in reverence. But that day, rumor said, Zacharias had remained overlong in the room which contained the altar. When finally he had emerged to take his allotted position at the top of the steps leading from the porch to the Court of the Priests, he had been unable to speak and could only beckon to the others instead of leading in the benediction.
No one doubted that Zacharias had had a divine vision in the Holy Place, but the old priest had been able to reveal nothing of what had happened and had departed to his own village immediately his offices in the temple were completed. There he had remained, still not able to speak.
Mary was able to make the long trip to Hebron in company with a party of friends who were going from Nazareth to Judea. As she trudged along the road with them, she had wondered whether there could be any connection between the strange thing which was said to have happened to Zacharias and her own experience with the angel. Her questions were answered at once when she reached the home of her kinswoman. For Elisabeth, in spite of the fact that she was beyond the normal age of childbearing and had been barren for many years, was far advanced in pregnancy.
Elisabeth’s greeting had confirmed the thrilling promise of the angel who had visited Mary. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” the older woman had said. “But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Mary told Elisabeth of what had happened in Nazareth and of her own doubts, and how even though she was sure now that her senses had not betrayed her, she could not understand how she, a lowly daughter in the line of David, had been chosen for so high an honor.
It was a question that Elisabeth had not been able to answer. Before her visit was ended, however, Mary’s body had confirmed what the angel had revealed, that she, though a virgin, was indeed to bear a child. The fact of her pregnancy being certain beyond doubt now, Mary straightway traveled back to Nazareth to tell Joseph the story of how she had been selected by God to become the mother of a king.
Several months later, Elisabeth had sent word to Mary that she had given birth to a strong boy who had been circumcised on the eighth day, as was required for all male children born in Israel, and named John. Immediately after the ceremony, Zacharias had found his tongue again and had told how an angel of the Lord had appeared to him in the temple as he stood beside the altar of incense and revealed that his wife would conceive and bear him a son who would, in the words of the messenger, “Go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the
Lord.”
Few believed the story of the old priest, choosing to think that he had dozed as he waited before the Holy Place to burn the incense and had only dreamed a vivid dream. But Zacharias and Elisabeth were happy now. It had been many hundreds of years since a true prophet had arisen in Israel, and they were both proud that here in their house lay one to whom the Most High had promised the spirit and power of Elijah.
III
Mary had told all these things to Joseph when she returned to Nazareth. With the signs of her pregnancy already beginning to be evident, she was concerned about the talk that would follow when she bore a child which obviously had been conceived before she and Joseph were legally man and wife. Through it all Joseph had been gentle and kind, thinking of her before himself, as he did even now.
After seating Mary comfortably upon the rock beside the road where she could look across the valley to Bethlehem, he tethered the mule loosely so it could graze upon some small patches of dry grass between the rocks. From the pack that contained his carpenter’s tools, he took a small waterskin and, after Mary had drunk from it, relieved his own thirst.
Toward Bethlehem, whose white rooftops were now plainly visible in the afternoon sunlight, a broad ridge gradually rose to form a hill that extended almost in a north-south direction for some distance before turning slightly to the southwest to parallel the road to Hebron, along which the dust kicked up by travelers approaching the city from the south was plainly visible. The back of the ridge was irregular in shape and to the east a lesser slope ended in a small plain between two valleys. Almost atop the ridge, on the lowest of its three elevations, lay Bethlehem.
From where he stood, Joseph could see the gates of the town, where he had played as a child, the northwestern one leading toward Jerusalem, only a few hours’ walk distant for a vigorous man, and the western gate leading toward Hebron. To the south and east smaller gates were also cut into the winding wall that encompassed the town, but they were of little significance since no highroad traversed them.
Turning, Joseph looked to where Mary sat upon the rock, resting her back against the rough stone with her eyes closed. He saw her body suddenly grow tense and her face tighten in a grimace of pain as her hands pressed down upon the rock beside her. Her womb had begun to contract with the pains of oncoming labor about an hour ago and before the night was over, he was fairly sure, the child she carried would be born.
As he looked toward Bethlehem and remembered the promise of the ancient writings that a king of Israel would be born there, Joseph thought again of the story Mary had told when she returned from her visit to Elisabeth and Zacharias. He had wanted to believe her then, but it was all so strange he could not force himself to do so. Loving Mary as he did, he had felt no desire to make an example of her, though what had happened obviously made continuing their betrothal impossible.
He had decided therefore to break the betrothal privately. Though the letter of divorce that was required to sever the betrothal had to be public, it could legally be given to Mary in the presence of but two persons, thus avoiding having to bring her before a court of justice with all the scandal inevitably involved. And yet Joseph had hesitated, for, however unbelievable the story she had told of being pregnant by the Holy Spirit with a child destined to be Messiah and king in Israel, his love and respect for Mary would not let him cause her pain.
Three things had been regarded since ancient times as signs of favor from the Most High, “A good king, a fruitful year, and a good dream.” So when the third of these came to Joseph one night, he took it as the voice of the Lord speaking to him, although with the tongue of an angel.
“Joseph, son of David,” the voice in the dream had said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She shall bring forth a Son and you shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” And Joseph, on waking from his dream, had found himself convinced that if the Most High God had chosen his espoused wife as the vessel by which a Savior was to come to Israel, his own duty was manifestly clear. He must cherish and protect her and her child, counting it an indication of the Lord’s trust and favor that so great a charge had been given him.
Joseph and Mary both loved the hill country of Galilee, but they were both from the line of King David and so had to return to their ancestral family city in order to be registered for the census decreed by Caesar Augustus. Bethlehem, where Joseph was born, was the City of David, the greatest king in Israel’s history. A hallowed place, it was eminently suited to serve as a cradle for Him who, Mary had been assured, would one day reign over God’s own people. God had long ago revealed through the prophet Micah that His Son would be born in Bethlehem, saying, “But you, Bethlehem Ephratah, out of you shall He come forth the One who is to be the ruler of Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” So it was that in Mary’s final days of pregnancy, they took the required journey to Bethlehem. Joseph took Mary and his few possessions with them, thinking to remain for a while at least to see how he might fare there in his trade.
Engrossed in his thoughts, Joseph did not notice, until the sudden coolness of the approaching winter night penetrated his robe and made him shiver, that a cloud had obscured the face of the sun. As he went to get the mule and bring it to the rock where Mary sat, he glimpsed far to the eastward, through a valley that divided the hills, the metallic-looking surface of the Sea of Judgment, in whose waters which had swallowed up sinful Sodom and Gomorrah there was no life. And a little to the south, on the highest peak in the gradual descent of the hill country to the flat wastelands of the desert, where no man could live without carrying water, stood the great castle which Herod had built and furnished for himself.
At once fortress, luxurious palace, and reminder that an alien instead of any son of David ruled there, the grim ramparts of the Herodeion, as the castle was called, were symbols of an authority based on murder, suspicion, and greed, exemplified in the wily Idumaean who was now king of the Jews. And yet of the child Mary was to bear, perhaps before the sun rose over the hills to the east again, the angel had said, “He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give to Him the throne of His father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.”
Chapter 2
And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2:7
The yard of the inn at Bethlehem, where Elam and Jonas arrived with their pack animals just as darkness was falling, had already filled with travelers and their animals. Most of them were humble folk who had made the journey to Bethlehem only because the Emperor Augustus in Rome had decreed that every man must be listed by the census takers in the place of his birth—recorded for purposes of taxation by both his nomen and his cognomen—and now the period allotted for the census was nearly past.
Naturally no one stood in the way of Elam as he strode importantly into the building and shouted for the proprietor. Jonas followed his master unobtrusively to learn what place in the stable would be assigned to him as quarters for the night.
“I told you I have but one couch,” the innkeeper was saying when they entered. “The price is two shekels, nothing less.”
Looking at the traveler who was dickering with the innkeeper, Jonas knew at once that the man was not accustomed to taking lodgings, let alone paying any such price as two shekels for them. His robe of rough homespun was almost as torn as was Jonas’s, and the strips of cloth wrapped about his ankles against the cold were stained with mud and torn by the horny bushes that lined the rough paths. Usually travelers such as he did not frequent inns but slept by the roadside under the shelter of the trees wherever night caught them or in the public caravansaries outside the towns.
“I am only a carpenter of Nazareth,” Joseph said with quiet dignity. “But my wife is great with child and her time is near.”
For the first time Jonas noticed the young woman sitting in the corner upon a bale. The quietly radiant beauty in her face made it shine, he thought, like that of an angel. Then she gasped from a sudden spasm of pain and her hands grasped her swollen body.
The look of pain on his wife’s face seemed to resolve the carpenter’s hesitation about the price asked by the innkeeper. “I will pay what you ask,” he said quickly, reaching for the flabby and worn purse at his belt.
Just then Elam spoke loudly. “Did I hear you say you have a couch left for the night, landlord?” he demanded.
The innkeeper’s quick appraising glance noted the Pharisee’s rich robe and his air of wealth and authority. “I have only one, noble sir,” he said, “and this man—”
“I will pay you four shekels for the use of the couch,” Elam interrupted importantly, taking a bulging purse from his girdle.
The landlord’s face brightened. “Certainly, sir,” he said respectfully.
“But you contracted with me for the couch,” Joseph objected. “I was opening my purse to pay.” He did not speak loudly; the am ha-arets did not thrust themselves forward in the presence of a man of such obvious importance as Elam. But his tone was firm nevertheless, showing that he was accustomed to standing up for his rights and was well acquainted with them.
“No money changed hands,” Elam pointed out.
“My purse is open.”
“You have not paid the landlord,” Elam said sharply. “Do you claim that you did?”
“No, I had not paid him,” Joseph admitted.
“Then there is no contract under the Law, for no money has changed hands,” Elam said triumphantly. “The couch is mine for the price of four shekels.”
The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ Page 2