Yesterday, Today, and Forever

by Maria Von Trapp

  When we, the entire family, traveled all over South America, it also happened to be in the winter, in the rainy season. If one was caught in a tropical shower, one was drenched within a few minutes. A few short hours after Mary and Joseph had left the houses of Nazareth behind them, the rain must have soaked their woolen mantles and woolen tunics, and the hooves of the little ass spattered mud on them. The garments would never become quite dry until they had reached Bethlehem. Heavier and heavier they would hang on their shoulders, as the mud crust became thicker every day.

  Such a trip was not without its dangers in those days. Only since the Crusades in the 12th century have lions become extinct in the Holy Land. Throughout Holy Scriptures we find warnings against lions, wolves, and other wild animals. Maybe Mary and Joseph did not always reach an inn, and they had to camp out one or more nights on the roadside. Then a fire had to be made and kept going throughout the night to keep the wild animals away.

  There was another pest of the highway — the robbers. The country was infested with them. Large bands of them lived in the hills and threatened the travelers. When we say “inn,” we must not think of a comfortable, homey, New England cottage-like building. We mustn’t even think of a building at all. The inn by the roadside in the Holy Land consisted usually of a wall 12 to 15 feet high, surrounding a quadrangle, in the middle of which a big fire was burning. The innkeeper let the travelers in who, for a small payment, would spend the night around the fire, unmolested by robbers and wild animals. But they had to provide their own food, and the only comfort was freedom from fear.

  Mary and Joseph wound their way slowly down the hills of Galilee through the plains of Estralon toward the hills of Judea. It must have been very hard for Mary to sit for hours at a time with no rest for her back, being bounced by the hard, mincing steps of the little donkey. She might lean on Joseph’s shoulder for a little while; he might help her down so she could walk a bit. But wading through the mud didn’t help much either, so she would go back to the donkey, always patient, with a weary little smile. But it must have torn Joseph’s heart to see her uncomfortable like this, and be unable to do much to help. His whole heart must have been longing for Bethlehem, his hometown, where his father’s house was still standing and his brothers and kindred were still living. If only they were safe in Bethlehem, then everything would be all right. The family would provide fresh, dry clothing, and in the privacy of her own room, Mary would quickly recover from the hardships of this trip.

  These might have been the thoughts of Joseph as he was leading the donkey by the reins up and down the hills through the rain and wind for eight, nine, or maybe ten long days, while Mary’s heart repeated over again and again, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

  “Pray that your flight may not be in winter” (Matt. 24:20), our Lord would admonish His listeners later. It seems that His mother must have told Him about her unforgettable trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem — in winter.

  Chapter 3

  Away in a Manger

  “Is it true what Rupert said,” asked young Martina woefully, “that in the Holy Land around Christmas it is always warm like in summer, and roses and violets bloom in Bethlehem? On all Christmas cards Bethlehem is deeply covered with snow, and in our Christmas carols it’s always a white Christmas, and I like that much better.”

  “No, it’s quite possible that the first Christmas was a white Christmas, too,” answered Father Wasner. “In the book of the Maccabees it is written, ‘But there fell a great snow and he’ — Tryphon — ‘came not into the country of Galaad’ ” (1 Mac. 13:22). Father Wasner, who had fled Austria with our family and was the conductor and composer for the Trapp Family choir, often added insight to our conversations.

  “And Flavius Josephus, who was a citizen of Jerusalem one generation after our Lord, says that in Jericho down at the Jordan there is always a wonderful temperature, that the people there are only dressed in linen, ‘even when snow covers the rest of Judea,’ ” said I, who had gotten a popular edition of the works of Flavius Josephus for Christmas.

  Agathe added, “ Only recently I read in a book that an officer wrote home that when he came out from midnight mass in Bethlehem, he saw snow covering the ground.”

  Snow or no snow — it doesn’t seem so very important, but it certainly was a help to us in picturing Mary and Joseph traveling through the short, cold December days toward Bethlehem. Everybody likes to see his hometown again. Once, when we went back to our hometown, Salzburg, in Austria, everyone in the family afterward confessed the same thing: how his heart was beating faster as the train drew closer; how eagerly he was looking out for the first landmark, the fortress; how he was hoping to find the countryside the way we had left it years ago. And we had an American friend with us, Hester, to whom we now proudly pointed out the sights.

  Once outside of Jerusalem, there were only six more miles to go, and Joseph must have glanced eagerly southward to see whether he could see the first familiar landmark, the pillar over Rachel’s sepulchre.

  “Salzburg is a very old place,” we explained with pride to Hester, “fifteen hundred years old.”

  The same thing Joseph could have said to his bride from the north, because Bethlehem was an old place already when, a thousand years before them, their ancestor David watched the sheep in the fields outside the little town. After five miles the road turns sharply to the east, and there they saw a brand new building towering over David’s town. It was the Herodeum, a combination of fortress and mausoleum, recently erected by Kind Herod, who was dying inch by inch on his couch of gold.

  And now they had reached the end of the journey. The little town of Bethlehem lay before them, terraced on the slope surrounded by vineyards and olive groves. They entered through the city gate. How many, many times during the last days Joseph must have gazed anxiously at his young wife, who each time had smiled bravely back at him. But now all was safe, and his heart was full of thanksgiving. One could imagine that they first wound their way through the crowded streets to the publican’s office to fulfill the census which had brought them thither, and then Joseph must have said, “And now, let’s go home.”

  To the Oriental, hospitality is sacred. If there was no room for Joseph in the house of his fathers, it must really have been occupied to the last square yard by relatives who had arrived for the same purpose a little earlier. If one has been in Salzburg during Festival time, or in Oberammergau when the Passion Play is on, and has seen on almost every house sign “No Room — No Room — No Room,” then one can imagine a little bit how it must have been. Joseph, pleading from door to door, worming his way through the crowds with his broad shoulders making a way for Mary, who shouldn’t be pushed like that. Only after he had tried all the houses of relatives and friends, Joseph decided with a deep sigh to go to the public inn.

  Bethlehem, unlike Jerusalem, was only a small country place and didn’t have one of those larger and more comfortably equipped tourist homes. There wouldn’t be any privacy for Mary. There wouldn’t even be cleanliness with all the fresh and rotten manure around the walled-in courtyard. But there was only the choice between the protecting walls of this little inn or the dangers of the open fields, and one more look at Mary showed that she was drooping with fatigue. And then the most crushing of all blows came. There was no room at the inn. Maybe the innkeeper, whose place was overcrowded, didn’t even open the door, but through the closed door told them harshly to go away. If the onslaught of tourists becomes too great in a small town, the natives often object. If you haven’t wired ahead for reservations, well, that’s just too bad.

  “He came to his own home, and his own people received him not” (John 1:11).

  Joseph had been chosen by God Almighty to be the guardian of those two most precious lives — the Son of God and His mother. This was now the hour when Joseph showed that he was worthy of his high vocation. In this moment of his keenest disappointment it would have been o
nly human and most understandable if he had lost his nerve a bit and tried once more from house to house, making a big display, imploring, threatening, crying (we are in the Orient!). No, Joseph did not leave Mary’s side. Boys growing up in country towns usually know every square foot of the surroundings for miles. He must have known those limestone caves in which his great ancestor David had hidden, and he remembered the one where there was a manger. Once more Joseph took the reins of the donkey and silently led the way toward the only shelter he could provide.

  Once when we had come to that point in the Christmas story, Hedwig, who was pretty young then, exclaimed with flashing eyes, “Oh, Mother, if only we had lived in Bethlehem then! We would have taken Mary and Joseph into the big guest room with the balcony.” Her little sisters had tears in their eyes, tears of wrath against the bad people, tears of pity for the poor mother.

  Many big and little children must have felt the same way, because there is an age-old folk custom called the “Herberg suchen” (seeking for shelter). During the last ten days before Christmas throughout the villages of Austria the people carry an image of Mary through the place. It is left in another house each day, where it is received with great solemnity, being treated as a special guest, given a place of honor, and lovingly decorated with flowers and candles. It is also done in large families, every member taking turns for one day being the special host of the exalted guest.

  Our Lord himself foresaw this reaction of the human heart when He one day would say, “And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me” (Matt. 18:5; KJV). He does not say: “Whosoever receiveth one of those little ones in my name is doing something very nice and I will bless him for it.” He says, “receiveth me.” Just why don’t we take Him literally? If we did, for instance, there couldn’t possibly be any little ones left in the expanses of New York City throughout the hot summer months, playing on the streets in the blue fumes of the exhaust pipes, on the asphalt softened by the heat. The stone-hard asphalt can soften — how about human hearts?

  Aren’t Mary and Joseph still going from place to place looking for shelter, and isn’t it still true that there is no room in the inn? The only change is that this time the innkeepers are we …you and I.

  Chapter 4

  Silent Night, Holy Night

  I come from Tyrol. This is the part of Austria with the highest mountains and the greatest number of woodcarvers. Woodcarving seems to be a talent that is inheritable. There are whole valleys where all the families carve. The favorite objects are the very end and the very beginning of redemption — the crucifix and the crib. Tyrol is the country of the Christmas crib. Every home and every church has such a representation of the Nativity, more or less elaborate, more or less artistic. But always the cave is freshly painted and meticulously clean, ox and ass look well-groomed, and the straw may even be a little gilded.

  When one grows up among those “pretty” cribs, one easily forgets how different it must have been on that first Holy Night. Because there was a manger in the cave, it must have been used for animals, so the floor was littered with dung. Except for that manger, there was nothing in it perhaps but a little barley straw. The only fresh air came through the narrow entrance by which one stepped down into that dark, smelly hole. “To make oneself at home” was quite impossible. Joseph could only try to make Mary a little less uncomfortable by arranging the straw so that she could lean against the wall opposite the entrance, get some fresh air, and look up into the cold winter sky.

  The Gospels don’t mention the ox and ass, without which every crib would be unthinkable, but Isaiah the prophet knew of them: “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib” (Isa. 1:3; KJV). The Gospels also do not mention the cave directly, still, tradition very often supplements the Gospels. After all, didn’t John the Apostle say that the world itself could not hold the books that would have to be written if everything should be told in detail? And it is according to tradition of the very first centuries. Justinius the martyr, living in the generation after the Apostles, and after him Jerome, living in a cave outside Bethlehem himself for most of his life, reverently describes this cave of the Holy Night.

  What may have gone on during these next hours of the most holy of all nights? “And while they were there,” says Luke (2:6–7), “the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.” And tradition adds that Joseph, who saw that the hour was at hand now for the young mother and who did not know that she wouldn’t need any aid, went over to Bethlehem to look for a helper among the women. Mary, however, was drawn in deepest recollection into God, and when she came out of ecstasy, before her lay her little child. With indescribable happiness she must have taken Him to her heart, and wrapped Him up against the cold. When Joseph returned, he found mother and child. Forgotten now was the anxiety of the last days, the crushing disappointment of the evening, the coldness of the hearts in Bethlehem, as well as the cold of the frosty winter night. In this cave there was only love and wonder and adoration. For “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us …we have beheld his glory” (John 1:14).

  Chapter 5

  Angels We Have Heard on High

  Christ was born in Bethlehem, but the world didn’t notice. The world was asleep. “The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (John 1:5; KJV). Only a few miles away in Jerusalem the house of the Lord God was silent and dark. The priests of the Most High were asleep. Also, the king’s palace was dark. Herod was seeking relief from his pain in sleep. All the great ones in Israel, the scribes, the doctors of the law, the zealots, the Pharisees, and the Herodians — all were fast asleep. In the little town on the hillside where the family of David the king was gathered together, everybody was fast asleep. All those of the house and family of David had come, some of them from faraway places, to be enrolled as subjects of a foreigner. Now they slept, and didn’t know that their kinsman promised from of old was born in their midst in a cave because there was no room in their homes, in their hearts.

  In faraway Rome, Caesar Augustus was also fast asleep. Little did he know how much his recent law had inconvenienced a humble couple somewhere near the border of the empire. And little would he have cared, had he known. Wouldn’t he have been astonished, though, had he learned that throughout the centuries millions and millions would come and go who would never have heard of him, the great Augustus, except in connection with the birth of this humble child!

  All the great ones of this world were asleep, but in heaven was such rejoicing as had never been heard since the creation of the world. All those millions of souls, perhaps headed by Adam and Eve, thanked God in a thunderous chorus that their redemption was at hand. And the Heavenly Father wanted to congratulate His children on earth — was there no one awake to receive His messengers?

  “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” Our Lord would pray on a later day, “because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matt. 11:25; KJV). And Paul would add one day: “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen”(1 Cor. 1:27–28; KJV). The great teachers of the day, the rabbis of Israel, had declared the shepherds as “base” and “foolish,” the very lowest of the low, on the same level as the Gentiles, unclean before the law. And these shepherds were the only ones awake in Israel. “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8; KJV).

  This was no ordinary flock they were watching. These sheep were not to be eaten by men, but they were destined to become sacrifices for God. At this time the priests of Jahweh were not only servants of God, but also extremely successful businessmen. They had managed to become the sole proprietors of the herds from which the s
acrifices were chosen. Again, it is Josephus Flavius who mentions that at one Passover around 120,000 lambs were slaughtered. That gives a little idea of the size of the flocks, parts of which were grazing on the fields outside Bethlehem. “Behold the Lamb of God,” John the Baptist would exclaim later. And there the Lamb of God was born next to the lambs of sacrifice, the fulfillment next to the symbol. But it was the shepherds, not the owners, who would find out about Him first. “And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them” (Luke 2:9; KJV).

  This was not the first time that angels had been sent to men. Throughout the pages of the Old Testament we find it happening many times, but each single time when heaven and earth met, the reaction of earth was the same: “And they feared with a great fear.”

  “We shall surely die, because we have seen God,” cried the father of Samson (Judg. 13:22; KJV) because an angel had appeared to him and his wife. How did he know that it was not God Himself? And each time heaven would say to earth: “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy.” Each time except once. Once the great angel of the Lord was sent on a special mission into a small village tucked away in the hills, to a young girl, and this time when the natural and supernatural world met, it was different. The girl did not fall on her face, fearing she must surely die, and the first words of the angel were not “Fear not.” Only once did it happen that the angel of the Lord greeted one of the children of men, and this young girl did not say to the tremendous heavenly guest in the usual bashful way, “Oh, no, no sir, not you should greet me, but I have to greet you first.” No, she listened to the greeting, and then she only pondered in her heart what it might mean. For in this one case the angel of the Lord was greeting Mary of Nazareth.