The Christmas Mystery

  And with those words he put Elisabet down on the mosaic floor in front of the church.

  Joshua thumped his shepherd’s crook on the ground. “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  As they moved off, they could hear the bishop’s laughter behind them in the church square.

  “Ho-ho! Ho-ho! Ho-ho!”

  * * *

  MAMA looked up from the paper and began laughing as well. It was infectious, and when Joachim burst out laughing, Papa couldn’t resist. So all three of them sat there chuckling.

  At last Mama said, “I think laughter is like the wildflowers. Both are a part of the glory of heaven that has strayed down to earth. But it’s very easy for that kind of thing to spill over.”

  Before Mama finished reading what was written on the piece of paper, Papa had brought out the historical atlas.

  “The names are on the map,” he said. “And Paul really did visit a little town called Myra when he was on his way from Jerusalem to Rome.”

  “Perhaps Elisabet in the photo traveled the same way as Paul,” suggested Joachim, “because she went to Rome, too.”

  “And she had a silver cross with a red stone in it,” said Mama. “The Christmas nisse did, too.”

  Papa laughed. Then he went into the living room to get an encyclopedia. He came back reading.

  “The Bishop of Myra was the very first Santa Claus.”

  “I must say, history is full of strange connections,” said Mama. “It’s as if Christmas elves have been jumping up and down all through the centuries.”

  20

  DECEMBER 20

  … something suddenly fell from the sky …

  ON Sunday, December 20, Joachim was awakened by the alarm clock in Mama and Papa’s bedroom. Usually, they hardly ever set the alarm on Sunday. But they were probably afraid Joachim would wake up first and open the magic Advent calendar door without them. In any case, the next moment they were both in the room.

  Joachim opened the door with the number 20 on it. They saw a picture of a man lying on the ground looking up at a bright light shining down from heaven.

  “That’s a strange picture,” said Mama.

  But Papa was impatient. “Let’s read,” he said.

  Today it was Papa’s turn to read.

  CHERUBIEL

  A procession was on its way through Asia Minor. During the third century, it sped through Pamphylia and Cilicia, south of the high Taurus Mountains. It crossed rivers, groves, and mountain plains. Sometimes the pilgrims made their way along steep slopes with old tombs hewn out of rock; sometimes they struggled along the edge of the sea, with the sand kicking up behind them; sometimes they sped through Roman cities, including Attalia, Seleucia, and Tarsus. At Tarsus, they paused and looked around for a few seconds. The angel Ephiriel told them that it was where Paul had been born.

  On their journey, the pilgrims passed Roman theaters, sports arenas, harbors, triumphal arches, and temples. Now and again, they saw something that might have been a Christian church.

  The route was planned so that they would not attract too much attention. It took them a century to cross the country but they showed themselves only in the gray light of dawn, before people were awake. All the same, here and there they frightened the wits out of a night watchman, or a fisherman setting his nets out early. Usually, they sped on, and the fisherman or the night watchman would be left there, rubbing his eyes. But sometimes Impuriel called to them that they should not be afraid.

  A human being doesn’t often see one of the angels of the Lord, and even then the sight doesn’t last longer than a second or two. Then it’s easy to believe you’ve seen a vision, especially if you’re a night watchman who hasn’t closed his eyes during the long hours of his shift.

  The mysterious procession sped around the Gulf of Alexandretta at the very tip of the Mediterranean. From now on, the way to Bethlehem led south along the eastern coast. They arrived at the Syrian city of Antioch and stopped in front of the town gate.

  “We are in the Year of Our Lord 238,” said the angel Ephiriel. “This is where Paul’s missionary journeys began. We should remember, too, that the word ‘Christian’ was used for the first time in Antioch.”

  “But weren’t Jesus’ disciples Christian?” Elisabet wanted to know.

  “Yes and no,” replied Ephiriel. “It took a long time for the first Christians to begin calling themselves Christians, and the first time when that happened was in this very city. Before then, the Christians thought of themselves as Jews. Paul was a Jew, too, but on his missionary journeys he found that Romans and Greeks could also believe in Jesus. Paul thought they didn’t need to become Jews to believe in Jesus. They didn’t need to follow all the old rules in the Book of Moses, either. Because Jesus didn’t speak to the Jews alone. He had something to say to all people.”

  The Wise Men came up to Ephiriel.

  “We are Wise Men from the Orient,” said Caspar, “and Kings of Nubia, Sheba, and Egryskulla. None of us are Jewish. All the same, we are among the very first to welcome the Christ Child into the world.”

  Joshua struck his shepherd’s crook against the city wall. “To Bethlehem!” he said. “To Bethlehem!”

  The procession of pilgrims moved off. Ephiriel said that they were on their way to Damascus, the capital of Syria.

  After a while, Ephiriel called to them to stop. They were on a deserted stretch of the old Roman road through Syria. “Here it is,” said Ephiriel, pointing at a bright red poppy on the side of the road. “The time is 235 years after the birth of Jesus. Two hundred years ago, a miracle took place here, and it was of great importance for the history of the whole world.”

  The Three Wise Men lined up and bowed solemnly. To show that he agreed, the Emperor Augustus planted his scepter on the exact spot that the angel had indicated.

  The four shepherds tried to collect the little flock of sheep around the Emperor’s scepter. It shone like a small sun. Quirinius, who had once been a governor in this country, called their attention to the landscape, saying, “It’s good to be home again. Now it’s only a couple of hundred years since I was the Governor of Syria.”

  “Excuse me for asking you so directly,” said Elisabet, “but I may be the only person who doesn’t understand what you are all talking about. Jesus wasn’t born here, was he?”

  Ephiriel laughed. “In the Year of Our Lord 35 after Christ, a Jew from Tarsus in Asia Minor was on his way to Damascus. His Roman name was Paul, but his Jewish name was Saul. As a young man he had lived in Jerusalem, where he studied the ancient Jewish scriptures. He may have met Jesus there and listened to what He had to say. But Paul was a Pharisee, and the Pharisees believed that people could appease God by following all the laws and precepts in the Books of Moses. He became one of the enthusiastic persecutors of the Christians. He helped to throw them in prison, and even helped to kill St. Stephen.”

  “Then he was a big fool,” said Elisabet.

  Ephiriel and all the others nodded. The angel continued, “But when he was on his way to Damascus to persecute the Christians there, he had a strange experience. Suddenly a light shone down from heaven, and Paul heard a voice saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ Paul asked who was calling him, and the answer was, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’ Paul and the men who were with him were struck speechless. All of them had heard the voice, but none of them had seen anything but the light from heaven.”

  Impuriel nodded. “That’s exactly what it was like. The voice they heard didn’t even say ‘Fear not.’”

  “Paul went into Damascus and joined the congregation there. Before long, he became the first great Christian missionary. Paul was a Roman citizen; he spoke Greek and Aramaic, which was the language Jesus spoke. And he could read the scrolls of scripture in Hebrew. On his four missionary journeys, he preached about Jesus in Greece and Rome, Syria and Asia Minor.”

  As Ephiriel was speaking, someth
ing suddenly fell from the sky. It happened so quickly that Elisabet didn’t even have time to jump. At first she thought it was a bird that had fallen to earth because it had forgotten to beat its wings. Then she saw that another angel was standing in front of her.

  “Fear not,” said the angel. “I am Cherubiel and I shall accompany you on the last stage of your journey to Bethlehem.”

  The Emperor Augustus picked up the scepter he had set in the spot where Paul had heard the voice from heaven, the shepherds gave the sheep a little push, and Joshua called out, “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  * * *

  PAPA let the piece of paper fall on the bed. “Amazing!” he said.

  He opened the atlas to show how the country they traveled through had looked in the third century after Christ. Then he repeated all the names and pointed to them on the map. It was almost as if he were singing: “Pamphylia, Cilicia, Attalia, Seleucia, Tarsus, Antioch.”

  Since it was Sunday, they had plenty of time. They had started getting ready for Christmas: washing the linens and the floors, baking cakes, and coloring marzipan sweets. That day, Mama and Papa also read old atlases and encyclopedias. They wanted to know more about the places the pilgrims had passed through.

  “I feel as if I’m back at school,” Mama said, laughing.

  Papa read aloud from a book in the Bible called the Acts of the Apostles, where there was a lot about Paul.

  “I’ve found it,” he said. “‘While he was still on the road and nearing Damascus, suddenly a light flashed from the sky all around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you have to do.’ And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one. Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.’”

  It was strange for Joachim to see Papa sitting in the green rocking chair, reading the Bible.

  Once he put the heavy book down in his lap and said, “This book is really just as remarkable as the magic Advent calendar.”

  Joachim was eating his supper when the phone rang. Mama answered it. She gave the receiver to Papa.

  “Yes,” Papa said. “Speaking … Of course, it happened many years ago … No, I understand that … Yes, it’s a clear picture … Quite certain … It’s St. Peter’s Basilica in the background … I would never have given up hope, either … No, I wouldn’t … All we have is this strange calendar that came to us by chance … He’s disappeared … No, I’ve never met him … My family say that, too … Pointy nose, yes … No, I don’t believe in angels … Not at all … Of course, it’s possible that she was kidnapped … No, but somebody or other … I don’t know … But clearly it’s possible that she’s still alive … She’d be unlikely to remember anything … She was only seven … Not that old, you say?… We have just the one boy … No, I would never have given up hope … At once, yes … I promise … And thank you for calling.”

  He put down the receiver.

  “Was that John?” asked Joachim.

  Papa shook his head. “It was Mrs. Hansen, Elisabet’s mother. I sent her a copy of that old photo. She said the young woman could well be her daughter who disappeared forty-five years ago. But then she was only six or seven years old. She had another daughter right after. Her name’s Anna, and she looks a little like the young woman in front of St. Peter’s…”

  When Papa came in to say good night that evening, he stood for a while staring into the darkness outside the window. “What on earth do you think has happened to John?”

  “He’s out in the wilderness,” said Joachim. “But it’s not Christmas yet.”

  21

  DECEMBER 21

  … the lake looked like a blue china bowl rimmed in gold …

  PAPA woke Joachim early on Monday morning, the twenty-first of December.

  “We have to get moving,” he said. “I have to go to work a little early today, you see. But this is important, too. Maybe it’s even more important than my job.”

  Joachim sat up in bed and opened the proper door. He had almost begun to dread Christmas, because then there wouldn’t be anything left of the calendar.

  That day, there was a picture of a village beside a shining lake. The village and the low hills around the lake were bathed in gold.

  Joachim began to read.

  EVANGELIEL

  Early one morning at the end of the second century after Christ, the companions raced at top speed into Damascus on the Barada River. They sped past two soldiers who were guarding the western gate and went in along the straight street that cuts right through the city.

  The soldiers turned to each other in confusion.

  “What was that?”

  “A gust of wind from the northwest.”

  “But it wasn’t just wind and sand. I thought I saw people, too.”

  The two soldiers were reminded of an old story from a few years ago, about something that had happened at the eastern gate. A group of soldiers had been knocked over by a procession that had approached along the main street and thundered out through the city gate. It had consisted of people and animals, and one of the soldiers thought he had seen angels as well.

  For as Elisabet, Ephiriel, and the others rushed out through the eastern gate, they happened to bump into some Roman soldiers. The soldiers fell down, picked themselves up in confusion, and tried to see where the procession had gone. But it was already many miles and many years away.

  Late in the afternoon one day in the middle of the second century, they came to the Lake of Gennesaret in Galilee. They stopped in front of a village and looked out across the glimmering water.

  The hills lay like a wreath around the lake, and with the golden evening sun shining on them, Elisabet thought the lake looked like a blue china bowl rimmed in gold.

  The village consisted of simple houses, each with a small shed at one end for the livestock. Between the houses walked laden donkeys led by men wearing tunics and cloaks. Women in flowing robes were carrying jars on their heads.

  “We are in Capernaum, which is on the old caravan trail between Damascus and Egypt,” explained Ephiriel. “Here Jesus called His first disciples. One of them was the customs official, Matthew, for Capernaum was an important customs station. The brothers Simon Peter and Andrew were two others; they were both fishermen. ‘Follow me,’ said Jesus, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.’”

  “He helped them to catch ordinary fish, too,” Impuriel hastened to add. “Yes, indeed!”

  Ephiriel nodded. “Once, when Jesus was standing by the lake to speak to a large crowd of people, He saw two boats farther down the beach. One of them belonged to Simon Peter. Jesus got on Peter’s boat and asked him to set out, and He talked to the crowd from the boat on the lake. That was a good idea, because then all the people could see Him as He spoke. When He finished speaking, He asked Simon Peter to row farther out and cast his nets there. Peter said he had fished all night and not caught a single fish. All the same, he did as Jesus asked, and he caught so many fish that the net broke from the weight.”

  “Another time, they were out on the lake,” Impuriel said. “Suddenly a storm blew up, and the disciples were terrified of drowning. But Jesus just lay down and slept. In the end, He had to quiet the storm so as to calm the disciples.”

  “He was showing them that they had very little faith,” explained Ephiriel.

  Impuriel nodded vigorously. “Yes, indeed! Yet another time, the disciples were out on the lake alone, when Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. When the disciples saw Him, they were scared; they thought He was a ghost or something. But when Simon Peter saw it was Jesus, he thought he’d show off, to prove how great his faith was. So he stepped out of the boat and walke
d on the water, too. It went well at first, but in a short time he became afraid of the waves and began to sink. He called to Jesus to come and save him.”

  Joshua struck his shepherd’s crook against a pile of broken stones. “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  They sped off along the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret. Before long, Ephiriel called to them to stop. He pointed up at a shelf in the rock.

  “That’s where Jesus gave the famous Sermon on the Mount. He talked about the most important things He wanted to teach us.”

  “What were they?” Elisabet wanted to know.

  Impuriel spread his wings, jumped up in the air, and said, “Our Father, Who art in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”

  Here he was interrupted by Ephiriel. “Yes, He taught them to pray. Above all, He wanted to teach human beings to be kind to one another. But He also wanted to show that nobody is perfect in the sight of God but that it’s all right.”

  “‘Blessed are the merciful,’” said Impuriel. “‘Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also … Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you … Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them…’”

  “That’s enough, thank you!” interrupted Ephiriel. “We know you remember it all. I should hope so, as one of the angels of the Lord.”

  All Three Wise Men obviously wanted to say something. Caspar and Balthazar nodded at Melchior and let him speak.

  “But it’s not enough to learn the rules of life by heart. It’s more important to try to follow them. And the most important thing is to do something for people in need, for people who are sick and poor, and for people fleeing from their homes. That is the message of Christmas.”