Yesterday, Today, and Forever

by Maria Von Trapp

  We three kings of Orient are,

  Bearing gifts we traverse afar

  Field and fountain, moor and mountain,

  Following yonder star.

  Oh-h, star of wonder, star of light….

  At this moment Peanuts, the pony, had to sneeze. He wasn’t used to incense. While the holy kings were singing beautifully and clearly in three parts, I recognized my two best brocade aprons acting as Turkish trousers on the legs dangling from Peanuts. I had a pretty good suspicion that they belonged to little Johannes, but was not quite sure yet. His countenance was dark black, and so was the little fist holding the stick with the star, a masterpiece consisting of transparent paper, cardboard, a flashlight battery and bulb, and the longest broomstick in the house. The other two royalties were dressed in the best silk curtains from the living and dining rooms, and wore the most beautiful golden crowns on their heads. His black majesty was wearing a white turban under his crown, a very becoming contrast to his complexion.

  I know now without looking at the calendar that it must be January 5. These were the “Star Singers” (Sternsaenger), an old Austrian custom going back through the centuries. On the evening of the Epiphany the children dress up as the three holy kings and go from house to house singing. There is only one great difference between the original holy kings and their little imitators: The first ones brought gifts, the others expect them. They get apples and oranges, dried figs and prunes, cookies and candies, and sometimes also a little money. I felt very much embarrassed at being caught unawares and asked Hester in a whisper whether we had anything in that line in our little study. We didn’t, so I quickly invented paper money of my own, worth fifty cents each, which could be cashed in Father Wasner’s room. The grateful little kings — Ili, Lorli, and Johannes, our three youngest ones — sang a thank-you song, through which Peanuts impatiently and understandably pawed the ground. According to the color of his king, he must have come from Africa and was not accustomed to our Vermont winters. Then in majesty and dignity they descended the hill “following yonder star.”

  Meanwhile, the real stars had come out, and the thin sickle of the new moon was hanging in the ink-blue sky over Stowe Hollow. Traces of incense were still around us, and it had all been so poetic and a little unreal that Hester and I stood and watched until the big yellow star had disappeared among the old apple trees and the young voices were trailing off. Only now did we notice how cold it was, and went back in to our little wood stove. The kerosene lamp, however, was not lit that whole evening.

  Hester, who had not known this folk custom, found it very lovely and said musingly, “How much does one really know about the story of the three holy kings?”

  Well, this has been foremost among our research projects for many a Christmas, so I told her what we had discovered. “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him’ ” (Matt. 2:1–2).

  Who were those wise men from the East? Since the third century, going back to Tertullian, there is a tradition which calls them “Magi” and “kings.” This fits perfectly with the psalm which says, “May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles render him tribute, may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts!” (Ps. 72:10). Among the old Medes and Persians such Magi were known, a very exclusive caste who led strict lives and kept the fire going at their places of worship in the mountains and studied the stars of heaven and the dreams of men. These men must have heard of the prophecy, “A star shall come forth out of Jacob and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel” (Num. 24:17).

  The Jews, who had been led into captivity several times, had spread the knowledge of a coming Messiah all over the Orient and deep into Persia, where the adventure of Tobias and Esther had taken place. The only thing the Gospel of Matthew tells us about the three high personages is that they were wise men and came from the Orient. Now also from the Orient come many legends and stories. One such story says that the Magi were descendants of the great Balaam. The golden coins they brought to little Jesus had been coined by Terah, the father of Abraham, and Joseph, the son of Jacob. It is interesting that the Gospel doesn’t talk about the number, how many there were, but in all pictures and pieces of sculpture there are always three. Some people say they represent the three ages of men: youth, maturity, and old age. Others say they are the representatives of different races: the Semitic, the Caucasian, and the Negro. People gave them the names of Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. An old Christian tradition says that Thomas baptized them on his way to India, and now their relics are venerated in the Cathedral of Cologne.

  How much can one find out about the star? There are many hypotheses. One says it must have been a comet, another says it was a newly appearing star, again another one thinks it was not a star at all, but a strong light like the lights of the Zodiac, which are frequently visible in the Orient. These and many other theories of a more learned nature have been used to explain the words, “We have seen his star in the east.”

  The church has not decided on any one of these details, so we in our family have settled on this story. We are all descended from Noah and his family: “The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth…. and from these the whole earth was peopled” (Gen. 9:18–19). Caucasians descended from Japheth; the people of the Middle East and Asia descended from Shem; and the Africans from Ham. The story that we like best is this: In Ethiopia, in Persia, and far away in the Caucasus, wise men were watching the sky for a special star which was promised to mankind. On one and the same day they all saw it appear and decided independently of each other, not even knowing of each other, to go and adore the newborn King whose sign the star had been. It took them many months to prepare a caravan worthy of royalty. When their plan became known, they were warned against their undertaking and finally ridiculed.

  After starting on their way, it took them many more months, and finally one blessed day they were brought together by the star in the desert. Now they traveled the last stretch of their journey together until at last they saw the high mountains of Moab appearing on the horizon. These were the mountains which Balaam, the great ancestor of all Magi, climbed up with the intention of cursing the people of Israel, and instead he blessed them. These are the mountains on whose peak Moses had stood in silence gazing into the Promised Land which he was not allowed to enter. From these mountains of Moab, the Magi looked down into this canyon which is the Jordan Valley.

  Now they knew they were near the end of their journey. How much time had they spent on the road? We don’t know, but each one had come a tremendous distance, and the caravans of old made about 10 or 12 miles a day. When they approached the Jordan, their animals must have drunk greedily after having crossed the desert. They came into Jericho, which had been just newly rebuilt by King Herod. The boundaries of the Roman Empire were there, and customs officers must have searched their rich caravans. Now they were really on the way to Jerusalem. It was that feared stretch of wild countryside infested with robbers, but a strong party such as theirs did not have to worry. Soon they were in the hills of Judea, and finally they saw the walls of the Holy City and the temple of stone and gold rising above it.

  They entered through the city gate and asked the first person they met, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him” (Matt. 2:2). This question was overheard by the Gestapo.

  “By whom?” asked Hester, who had been listening in rapt attention, but who couldn’t fit this modern word into our ancient oriental story. The spell was broken, and now we could just as well feed our little stove before it grew cold.

  “Matthew continues,” I said to Hester, “ ‘When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him’ ” (Matt. 2:3)

  From all I have read and learned about King Herod, he reminds me ve
ry much of Hitler and, coming from an invaded country where one had to beware of the Gestapo who, as the saying went, “heard the grass grow,” I understand how all Jerusalem was troubled. This Herod had not a drop of Jewish blood in his veins. His father was a Bedouin from Idumea, and his mother an Arabian princess. Of course, he was no descendant of David. He had gotten to the throne by kowtowing to the Romans. When they finally made him king of the Jews, they little knew that they were fulfilling the prophecy: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah …until he comes to whom it belongs; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Gen. 49:10).

  In order to make it look a little better, Herod married Mariamne, the granddaughter of the last real priest, King Hyrcanus. Her family was very little pleased about this, and so he simply began to liquidate them. He killed old Hyrcanus and Alexandra his daughter, Mariamne’s mother. Mariamne herself was the only being he ever really loved in his life, but one day in a fit of jealousy, he killed her with his own hands. Then he drowned his brother-in-law, the young high priest Aristobulos, because he got too popular for Herod’s taste. Soon afterward, his own two sons were strangled in the bath. When Herod was already very sick, he had his third son beheaded.

  No wonder his subjects hated him! By and by, he had built up such an efficient system of secret police that whatever happened in Jerusalem he knew of within five minutes. Exactly like the Gestapo. Therefore, when those harmless strangers asked for the newborn King, we can understand how all of Jerusalem was troubled because this was the feared word Herod could not stand. During the time of his reign there had been much bloodshed — mass massacre as well as single murders. A rumor had swept throughout the city that Herod, who was by now dying, had arranged in his last will that immediately upon his death a mass murder was to take place. All the leading men in the nation were to be killed, in order that there might be tears shed in the Jewish nation on the day of his death.

  “You see, Hester,” I said, “it must have been pretty similar in the little country of the Jews to our own small Austria. Both had been invaded, and were ruled by Quislings, and both had a Gestapo — the fear of which takes a long, long time to get out of your bones. Therefore, I can so very well understand what the evangelist meant when he said, ‘When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him’ (Matt. 2:3).”

  Who is going to be killed next? was the question everyone turned over in his mind. Then the Gospel continues: “And assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born” (Matt. 2:4).

  The news must have reached Herod in an incredibly short time that this big, rich caravan with very strange-looking foreigners had entered Jerusalem. Immediately he summoned the Sanhedrin, and the 72 members would have obeyed the royal call immediately because it is not safe to delay when a Hitler calls. Everyone in the city must have held his breath, and the 72 dignified elders must have wondered if they were going to leave the palace alive.

  When they were admitted into the presence of the king, they salaamed until their beards touched the ground. When they were finished with the ceremonial bows and glanced at the face of their king, the Jews could read there that Herod was troubled. When he glared at them in contempt — that is all he ever had for his Jewish subjects, he the great admirer of the Greeks — there must have been an almost unbearable tension in the room: What does he want of us? What is he going to do now?

  When he finally snapped the question, “Where is the Christ born?” with an almost unbelieving sigh of relief they broke out with the answer — not only a spokesman, but “they” said to him, says the Gospel, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet” (Matt. 2:5). And then they quoted the age-old prophecy of Micah as of one voice: “O Bethlehem Ephrathah …from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel” (Mic. 5:2).

  That was all. He didn’t want to hear any more. They were dismissed. It must have been almost too good to be true for them. And now the dying tyrant was thinking fast. Other messengers went out to summon the illustrious strangers. The Gospel goes on “Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared” (Matt. 2:7).

  What a different company now appeared before King Herod! Not the submissive subjects of a dictator, always trembling in their boots, but free men, kings greeting a king. There was salaaming again, but this time it was on both sides, and the sick man on his golden couch tried very, very hard to be at his best. His shrewd, wicked mind was all made up. At his earliest opportunity he had to do away with that “King of the Jews” whom these magnificent-looking foreigners had come to adore, but first he must find out something about Him. They had said they had seen His star. Very much depended now on the time. Herod feared that the star might have appeared to them many years ago, and this King of the Jews, the Messiah, might be a warrior now, ready to strike. That is why Herod “ascertained from them what time the star appeared.” What a sigh of relief when he learned the time! An ugly smile played around his cruel lips when he thought that his opponent was a mere baby in His mother’s arms. But he had to finish his act, and he played it well. “And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him’ ” (Matt. 2:8).

  With childlike minds, they bowed and assured him that of course nothing would give them more pleasure; and with this promise the venerable men hurried to meet their caravan to be on the way, now that they knew where to go. “Wise men,” the Gospel calls them, but Herod had outsmarted them, so it seemed, because “the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light” (Luke 16:8).

  “When they had heard the king they went their way; and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (Matt. 2:9–10).

  After not having seen the star for a while, they now view it with great joy. Only now can we imagine what a terrific trial Jerusalem must have been to those kingly souls. After their great decision to come all those vast distances, after the preparations and troubles and dangers of the journey, they finally reached the goal, the capital of the land of the Jews and the palace of the king, where, of course, they expected the infant to be.

  When they saw the perplexity on everybody’s faces when they asked the eager question, “Where is the newborn King of the Jews?” they grew more and more puzzled, and even the star had disappeared. Maybe this was the darkest hour in their lives. If the people at home had perhaps been startled at their whole undertaking, every word of their warning must have come back now when it all seemed to be a failure. It is so very humanly possible that the temptation may have arisen to leave quietly before their embarrassing situation became too widely known. They must have felt ashamed and embarrassed and bitterly disappointed when they learned that for a long, long time there hadn’t been a baby born in this royal palace of Jerusalem. But they were too unsophisticated and truly great just to leave quickly, turn toward the east, and vanish into the Syrian Desert. They believed in the star and in the One who had sent it, even after it had disappeared, and now — what a royal reward!

  The moon had left Stowe Hollow and was now standing directly over Cor Unum, our house. On account of the snow all around us, there was a dim twilight in the room — and a deep silence.

  “And?” said Hester finally.

  “Oh, excuse me,” I replied. “I couldn’t help thinking of the time when our family felt some of this ‘exceeding great joy.’ That was when in our life the star reappeared, too.”

  Hester looked at me, and it was bright enough to see the questioning expression on her face, although she didn’t say anything. So I explained. “One day in our life as a family we saw a great big light just as the kings saw the star. It was the time when we saw clearly that we had to give up our mate
rial goods in order to save the spiritual ones; and as an entire family — father, mother, and nine children — leave our native Austria and become voluntary refugees. The few friends and relatives who heard about this were aghast and very much against it. When we finally, after many adventures, reached our Jerusalem, namely New York City, thinking now we had reached the goal, it looked all of a sudden like a complete failure. The star was gone. In our hearts resounded the words of our well-meaning friends about Hitler’s promise of a thousand years of peace and the brilliant future our children could have had in his Third Reich — and there we were in America and nobody seemed to want us. It was a very dark hour. The war with Germany had not yet broken out. People urged us to go back; we could never be a success in this country. I shall never forget that particular hour. We were in the Hotel Wellington, my husband and I. It was past midnight and a gentleman had just left who for hours had tried to persuade us to go home on the next boat. When the door had closed behind him, I looked at my husband. We were both tired and very much discouraged. We had just enough money left to pay for our hotel, and there didn’t seem to be any future.

  “Then Georg said, ‘We were so deeply convinced when we left Salzburg that this was the will of God, and when one day we came through Cologne and knelt at the shrine of the three holy kings, we made them our patron saints for the time of our wanderings. Then we promised God to imitate them and persevere even if we couldn’t see the star. I think this is the time now.’

  “Still very tired, but not desperate any more, we went to bed. And then it all happened fast. We found the manager who understood us and in whose hands we felt safe as artists as well as people. ‘And lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.’