Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

  I was full of sadness. My mother loved her cousin so much. I could see them in my mind, the two women hugging each other when last we'd been together. And I had been so curious to talk to my cousin. There had been a seriousness in my cousin—that was the word, I found it at last—a seriousness, that drew me.

  The other boys in the camp were very friendly, and the sons of the priests spoke well and said good things, but I didn't want to be with others.

  I left Joseph. I was forbidden to ask him all the things that weighed down my heart. Forbidden.

  I lay down on my mat, and wanted to sleep even though the sky was just filling with stars.

  All around me the men were disputing, some of them saying the High Priest was not the right man, that Herod Archelaus had been wrong to put him in place, and others that the High Priest was acceptable, and we had to have peace, no more rebellion.

  Their angry back-and-forth voices frightened me.

  I got up, left my mat, to walk off alone, out of the camp,

  and into the hillside under the stars. This was good to be away on the slope.

  There were camps out there, too, but they were smaller—little gatherings covering the slopes and the fires giving off a little light while up above the moon shone very bright and beautiful over all, and I could see the stars broken and spread out in their fine patterns.

  There was grass under my feet and it smelled sweet, and the air was not too cold now, and I was wondering if John saw these same stars tonight out in the desert.

  James came up to me. He was crying.

  "What's the matter with you?" I said. I sat up. I got to my feet. I took his hand.

  I'd never seen my older brother like this.

  "I have to tell you," he said, "I'm sorry. Sorry for the mean things I've said to you. Sorry for . . . being mean to you.

  "Mean to me? James, what are you saying?" No one could hear us. It was dark. No one noticed us.

  "I can't go into the Temple of the Lord tomorrow with this on my heart, that I've treated you so badly."

  "But it's all right," I said. I put my hands out to hold him, but he drew back. "James, you never hurt me!"

  "I had no right to tell you about the magi coming to Bethlehem."

  "But I wanted you to," I said. "I wanted to know what happened when I was born. I want to know everything. James, if only you would tell me everything that happened—."

  "I didn't do it because you wanted it. I did it to be strong over you!" he whispered. "I did it to know something that you didn't know!"

  I knew this was the truth. It was the hard truth. It was just the kind of hard truth that James always said.

  "But you told me what I wanted to know," I said. "It was good for me. I wanted it," I said.

  He shook his head. He tears got worse. This was the sound of a man crying.

  "James, you're sad about nothing. I'm telling you. I love you, my brother. Don't suffer for this."

  "I have to tell you," he said in the same whisper, as if he needed to whisper. There was no one here but the two of us on the slope.

  "I've hated you ever since you were born," he said. "I hated you before you were born. I hated you for coming!"

  My face burned. I felt my skin all over.

  I'd never heard anyone say something like this. It took me a moment and then I said:

  "It doesn't hurt me."

  He didn't answer.

  "I didn't know," I said. "That's not right. I think I knew but I knew it would pass. I didn't think about it if I knew it."

  "Listen to your own words," he said. He sounded so sad.

  "What am I saying?"

  "You're wiser than your years," he said, he who stood so tall at thirteen, a man. "You have a different face than you had when we left Egypt. You had a boy's face then, and your eyes were like your mother's eyes."

  I knew what he meant. My mother always looked like a child. What I hadn't known was that I was any different.

  I didn't know what to say to him.

  "I'm sorry for hating you," he said. "Truly sorry. And I mean to love you and be loyal to you always."

  I nodded. "I love you as well, my brother," I said.

  Quiet.

  He stood there wiping his tears.

  "Will you let me put my arms around you?" I asked.

  He nodded, and we held each other. And I hugged him tight and could feel him trembling. That was how bad he felt.

  I drew back slowly. He didn't turn or go away.

  "James," I said. "Why did you hate me?"

  He shook his head. "Too many reasons," he said. "And I can't tell you all of it. Someday you'll learn."

  "No, James, tell me now. I have to know. I'm begging you. Tell me."

  He thought for a long time.

  "I'm not the one to tell you the things that happened."

  "But who is to tell me?" I asked. "James, tell me what made you hate me. Tell me that much. What was it?"

  He looked at me and it seemed his face was full of hate. Or maybe it was just unhappiness. In the dark his eyes were burning.

  "I'll tell you why I must love you," he said. "The angels came when you were born. That's why I have to love you!" He started to cry again.

  "You mean the angel who came to my mother," I said.

  "No." He shook his head. He smiled but it was a dark, bitter smile. "The angels came on the very night you were born. You know how it was, they told you. We were in the inn in Bethlehem, in the stable, with the beasts in the hay, all of us, it was the only place they had, and there were lots of people crowded in there that night. And your mother went through her pain in the back of the stable. She didn't cry at all. Aunt Salome was there to help her, and they lifted you up for my father to see, and I saw you. You were crying, but only as little babies cry because they can't talk. And they wrapped you up the way they wrap babies so they can't wriggle or move and hurt themselves, in swaddling clothes, and you were put in the manger, right on the soft hay there for a bed. And your mother lay in Aunt Salome's arms. And she began to cry for the first time, and it was terrible to hear her.

  "My father went to her. She was all wrapped up and the rags from the birth had been taken away. He held her in his arms. 'Why here in this place?' she cried. 'Have we done some wrong? Are we being punished for it? Why here in this place? How can this be right?' That's what she asked him. And he had no answer.

  "Don't you see? An angel had come to her and told of your birth, and here it had happened in a stable."

  "I see," I said.

  "It was terrible to hear her crying," he repeated, "and my father had nothing to say to her. But the door opened, and the cold air came in, a blast of it, and everybody huddled and groaned for the door to be shut. But these men were there, and a boy with them and a lantern. These were men in sheepskins with their feet wrapped against the winter, and their staffs, and anyone could see they were shepherds.

  "Now you know shepherds never leave their flocks, not in the middle of the night, not in the snow, but there they were, and the looks on their faces were enough to make anyone get up from their beds in the hay and stare at them, and everyone did. I did.

  "It was as if the fire from the lantern was burning in their faces! Never have I seen faces like their faces!

  "They went right to the manger where you were lying and they looked down at you; and they knelt down, and they touched their heads to the ground with their hands up.

  "They cried out: 'Glory to the Lord in the Highest; and peace on Earth, peace and goodwill to all!'

  "Everyone was looking at them.

  "Now your mother and my father said nothing but only looked at them; and the men climbed to their feet and they turned to the right and to the left telling everyone that an angel had come to them out in the field, in the snow where they'd been watching over their flocks. No one could have stopped them from their telling this, and now everyone lodged in the stable was gathered around.

  "One of them cried out that the angel had said, 'D
on't be afraid because I give you glad tidings of great joy; for today, to you, is born in the city of David a Savior: Christ the Lord!' "

  He stopped.

  His whole manner had changed.

  He was no longer full of anger or tears.

  His face had softened and his eyes were large.

  "Christ the Lord," he said. He was not smiling. But he was back in Bethlehem, in that moment, and he was with the shepherds, and his voice was low and full of quiet.

  "Christos Kyrios," he said in Greek. He and I had spoken Greek for most of my life. He went on in Greek. "They were so full of joy, those men. So elated. So full of conviction. No one could have doubted them. No one did." Then he went quiet. He seemed to drift into his memory altogether.

  I was unable to speak.

  So this is what they kept from me. Yes, and I knew why they kept it from me. But now I knew it, and it meant I had to know all the rest. I had to know what the angel had said who had come to my mother. I had to know all of it. I had to know why and how I had the power to take and give life, and the power to stop rain and bring snow, if I even had it, if, and what was I to do. I couldn't wait any longer. I had to know.

  And it frightened me completely to think of what Cleopas had said, that I must be the one to explain things to them.

  It was too much to keep in my mind. It was too much even to frame the questions that remained unanswered.

  And my James, my brother, it seemed he was becoming small and far away, even as he stood there—he was becoming a frail thing. I felt for a moment as if I wasn't part of this place, this grass, this slope, this mountainside above Jerusalem, the bits of music drifting towards us, the distant laughter, and yet it was so beautiful to me, all of it, and James, my brother, I loved him, I loved him and understood him and his sorrow with all my heart.

  He began to speak again, his eyes moving as if he was seeing what he described.

  "The shepherds, they said the Heavens had filled with angels. It was a host of angels in the Heavens. They threw up their arms as they said it, as if they were seeing the angels again. The angels sang: 'Glory to the Lord in the Highest! And on Earth, peace and goodwill to all.' "

  He bowed his head. He had stopped crying, but he looked spent and sad.

  "Picture it," he said in Greek. "The whole Heavens. And they'd seen this and come down into Bethlehem looking for the child in the manger as the angels had said to do."

  I waited.

  "How could I hate you for this?" he asked.

  "You were just a little boy—a little boy younger than I am now," I said.

  He shook his head.

  "Don't offer me your kindness," he said. I could barely hear him. His head was down. "I don't deserve your kindness. I am mean to you."

  "But you're my older brother," I said.

  He lifted his tunic to wipe his tears.

  "No," he said. "I have hated you," he said. "And it's asm.

  "Where did these men go, these shepherds who said these things?" I asked. "Where are they now? Who are they?"

  "I don't know," he said. "They went out into the snow. They told everyone the same story. I don't know where they went. I never saw them again. They went back to their flocks. They had to go back." He looked at me. In the moonlight I could see he was better now. "But don't you see, your mother was happy. A sign had been given. She went to sleep with you tucked near her."

  "And Joseph?"

  "Call him Father."

  "And Father?"

  "He was as he always is, listening, and saying nothing. And when all the people in the stable questioned him, he gave them no answers. The people came one by one and knelt down to look at you, and they prayed, and they went away, back into the corners and under their blankets. The next day we found a new lodging. Everyone in the town knew about this. People kept coming to the door, asking to see you. Old men came, hobbling on their sticks. The other boys in the town knew. But we weren't going to stay there long, Joseph said. Only long enough for you to be circumcised and the sacrifice to be made at the Temple. And the magi from the East, they came to that house. If it hadn't been for the magi going to Herod—."

  He stopped and turned.

  "The magi going to Herod? What happened?"

  But he couldn't say any more.

  It was Joseph walking slowly up the slope.

  I knew him in the dark by his walk. He stopped a little way away.

  "You've been gone too long," he said. "Come back now. I don't want you this far from the camp."

  He waited for us.

  "I love you, my brother," I said in Hebrew.

  "I love you, my brother," he said. "I will never hate you again. Never. I will never envy you. Envy is a terrible thing, a terrible sin. I will love you."

  Joseph walked ahead.

  "I love you, my brother," James said again, "and I love you, whoever you are."

  Whoever I am! Christ the Lord. . . had never told Herod.

  He put his arm around me. And I put my arm around him.

  Now I knew as we walked back that I could not let Joseph know that James had told me these things. Joseph would never have wanted it. Joseph's way was to talk about nothing. Joseph's way was to go from day to day.

  But I had to know the rest of this story! And if my brother could hate me all these years for this, if the Rabbi could stop me at the door of the school over questions to do with who I was, I had to know!

  Were these strange happenings the reason we had gone to Egypt? No, it couldn't have been that way.

  Even if the whole town of Bethlehem was talking about this, we could have gone to another town. We could have gone back to Nazareth. But what about the angel who appeared to my mother?

  We had kindred here—in Bethany. And they weren't all chief priests who were rich. Why, Elizabeth had been here. Why hadn't we gone to her? But then Herod's men had killed

  Zechariah! Had Zechariah died because of these stories! Stories of a child born who was Christ the Lord! Oh, if only I could remember more of what Elizabeth had told us on that terrible day last year, after the bandits had raided the village, about Zechariah being killed in the Temple.

  Oh, how long would it be before I knew these things!

  Later that night, as I lay on my blanket, I closed my eyes and prayed.

  All the many lines of the Prophets drifted through my mind. I knew the Kings of Israel had been the Lord's anointed, but they had not been heralded by angels. No, they had not been born of a woman who had never been with a man.

  Finally I couldn't think any longer. The struggle was too much.

  I looked at the stars, and tried to see the hosts singing in the Heavens. I prayed for the angels to come to me as they would to anyone on the Earth.

  A great sweetness came over me, a quiet in my heart. I thought to myself, All this World is the Temple of the Lord. All the Creation is his Temple.

  And what we have built on the far hill is only a small place, a place through which we show our love for the Lord who has made everything. Father in Heaven, help me. When I slipped into sleep, a great song opened up, and when I woke, for a moment I didn't know where I was, and the dream was like a veil of gold being pulled away from me.

  I was all right. It was early morning. The stars were still there.

  23

  I WASN'T A CHILD ANYMORE. According to the custom, a boy assumes the yoke of the Law when he's twelve, but that didn't matter. I wasn't a child. I knew it when I watched the other children that morning at play.

  I knew it when we joined the pilgrims going to the Temple.

  It was the same press as the day before, with hours passing in the singing, and the slow moving before we could reach the baths where we plunged naked into the cold water, and then put on the fresh garments we had brought in our bundles with us.

  At last, we were in the tunnel moving upwards toward the Great Court. Here the voices of those who disputed echoed off the walls, and at times sounded angry, but I wasn't frightened anymore.
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  My mind was on the unfinished story that James had told.

  Finally, the stream of singing pilgrims, full of the voices of all the world, poured out into the Court of the Temple and the clear sky was a welcome sight overhead. There was a spreading out, a freedom to take deep breaths, but we were soon in another crush to purchase the birds for our sacrifice. For James wanted to make a sin offering. And I soon realized this was why we had come.