The Thirty-Third Child: A Christmas Story.

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,

weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted,

because they are no more.”

Matthew 2:16-18

“A MOMENT SIR, just a moment of your time, that is all I ask.”

The teacher paused. His companions, fearing that, once again, he would be overwhelmed by the crowd, urged him on. So many people, all of them demanding a moment of his precious time.

“Hurry away, Teacher, there are too many, and we have far to travel before the sun sets.”

“Just one question, Sir. For the peace of mind of an old soldier. You, who have so many answers. I beg you, Sir, spare one for me.

A wind off the sea blew the thin whisps of what remained of old man’s of hair across the deep lines of his face. His had not been an easy life, that much was plain. And his eyes spoke of horrors they could not un-see.

“Go on, brothers, I will catch you up!”

The teacher drew the old man down a narrow alleyway between two houses, emerging from the gloom into the bright sunlight of a walled garden. The teacher motioned for the old man to be seated on a stone bench, positioned in the shadow of a lofty cypress.

“Ask me your question, brother.”

“Did I kill him? That is the question that has dogged my waking hours, and haunted my terrible dreams, for more than thirty years.”

“You do not know?”

“No, Sir, I do not. We killed so many. Mere babes they were, Sir, still at their mothers’ breasts most of them. And, oh, how those mothers pleaded for their sons’ lives. On their knees, their up-turned faces wet with tears, their eyes alive with fear. How they begged and begged, and screamed and screamed, as we stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. It was the King’s orders, Sir. We were to kill all the boys born since the arrival of three Parthian wizards. Journeying far from the East, they said, to pay homage to the new-born King of Israel. Herod was beside himself with rage. The prophecy must be defeated – there was no other way. Every male child born in and around Bethlehem since the arrival of these doom sayers was to be killed. That was the King’s dreadful order, and, God forgive me, Sir, I obeyed it.”

The teacher stood in the cypress’s shadow, motionless, a single finger pressed hard against his lips.

“How many did you kill, brother?”

“Thirty-two, Sir. Thirty-two innocent babes. Twenty-six in Bethlehem, six in the nearby farms and villages. Herod was satisfied. His crown and line were safe – or so he thought.”

“My father told me the tale of the slaughtered children when I was myself a child. It weighed heavily upon him, a great burden of guilt, all his life. That he did nothing to save them – even though he was forewarned of Herod’s murderous intentions. He fled with his wife, my mother, carrying me, their new-born son, south into Egypt – and safety. They sent no warning to the mothers of Bethlehem. Did not look back.”

The old soldier rose slowly to his feet, took three steps towards the teacher, and fell upon his knees. His gnarled fingers clutched wildly at the other man’s cloak, drawing it to his lips.

“Then I did not kill the King,” the old soldier whispered hoarsely, “for here he stands before me, alive beneath the sun. The thirty-third child.”

“It was not my father, alone, who bore the weight of guilt, my brother,” said the teacher, helping the old soldier to his feet. “All my life, I have carried with me the knowledge that to keep me safe, my parents did nothing to deliver those innocent children from Herod’s evil.”

The old soldier placed his hands on the teacher’s shoulders, his face grim as death itself.

“There was nothing you could have done, Sir. There was no hiding-place that my men and I would not have found eventually. And if you and your parents had not escaped south, in the very nick of time, then Israel would not have its saviour king – it’s Messiah.”

“But I am no Herod, brother. And no Messiah, neither. The kingdom I proclaim is not a place of thrones and swords and crimes. And all that it requires is one last sacrifice. One final gift of innocence to open the gates of paradise. The life of the thirty-third child.”

This short story was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 23 December 2022.

The Story Goes Ever On … Merry Christmas To All Bowalley Road Readers!

The road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began

Now far ahead the road has gone

And I must follow if I can

- J. R. R. Tolkien

WHEN I WAS LITTLE, Christmas seemed such a big thing. It loomed in my child’s mind as the final, familiar headland, around which the Ship of the Year must pass before dropping anchor on New Year’s Eve.

And it wasn’t just the gathering pace of the festival; the choosing and decorating of the tree, the steadily mounting pile of presents, the arrival of grandparents, aunts, uncles and assorted cousins, that quickened my excitement. Underpinning it all there was an awareness of the Christmas Story itself.

We are so familiar with the biblical narrative now, that it is easy to forget its impact upon the imagination of the very young. For me, the wonder of the story of the Nativity has always been encapsulated in the lines of Oh Little Town of Bethlehem:

Oh little town of Bethlehem

How still we see thee lie,

Within thy dark and dreamless sleep

The silent hours go by.

Yet in thy dark streets shineth

The everlasting light

The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in thee tonight

That sense of immanence, of something miraculous and terribly important taking place amidst the mundane and the ordinary; of a supernatural presence smashing through the barriers of the workaday world – as it did for those shepherds on the hillside – was incredibly powerful. It was as if a voice was whispering: “Be alert, be awake - there is more to all this than meets the eye!”

To a little boy growing up in the Otago countryside – where at night the stars burn bright and clear - the whole Christmas story glimmered with mystery and magic.

Growing older, I encountered more mystery and magic in another book – J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Superficially, Tolkien’s epic fantasy bears little resemblance to the Christian story, and yet, at their heart, the two narratives have much in common. Like the little town of Bethlehem, Tolkien’s ‘Shire’ also turns out to contain within its bucolic borders “the hopes and fears of all the years”. Like those shepherds on the hillside, Frodo Baggins and his friends are also suddenly confronted with supernatural forces that cannot be gainsaid.

The stories are also alike in their endings. In his magisterial essay On Fairy Stories, Tolkien uses the term eucatastrophe to describe that sudden, last minute lurch from ultimate disaster to ultimate victory, when, as Ruth S. Noel writes in her Mythology of Middle Earth: “imminent evil is unexpectedly averted and great good succeeds”. As Tolkien, himself, wrote of the purpose and effect of eucatastrophe: “It does not deny the existence … of sorrow and failure … it denies universal final defeat … giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”

Even in the resolutely materialistic Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels the eucatastrophe is not entirely absent. For what is the Revolution if not the sudden and unexpected triumph of good over evil? And is there not just a glimmer of immanence in Marx’s heroic proletarians, secretly growing in strength and power, even as Capitalism’s Dark Lords reach out to enslave the world?

“Don’t adventures ever have an end?” cries Bilbo, as he realises the true enormity of the burden he has bequeathed to his nephew Frodo. “I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.”

And, of course, the old Hobbit is right. For the Story, like the road, goes ever on. Be it the story of the Christ Child, or the Ring of Power, or the Revolution, it beckons all of us “beyond the walls of the world” - to Paradise.

A version of this essay was originally published in The Dominion Post of 21^st December 2001.

Remembering The Night: Christmas Story 2012

A Night To Remember: A grand story it was, and with the Galilean now preaching up and down the Jordan Valley, a story that was being re-told more often.

 

THE SUN WENT DOWN as it always did. Red and gold gave way to indigo and the white glitter of stars. Benjamin waited, as he always did, for the prosody of daylight to make way for the poetry of night – and memory.

 

Benjamin’s young companion, Joel, waited with him. Wondering if the older man would recite again his tale of magic and mystery.

 

A grand story it was, and with the Galilean now preaching up and down the Jordan Valley, a story that was being re-told more often – and not only by Benjamin.

 

It was about a king. A saviour born in a stable. The Messiah, no less: announced by angels; attended by Parthian wizards; hunted high and low by Herod; and welcomed into this world by shepherds. Shepherds like Benjamin – just a boy at the time.

 

It was a story that glowed with hope … and danger. Because the Romans crucified anyone they caught telling tales of saviours serving higher powers. The Jews already had a king, and he answered to just one higher power – the Emperor. The ruler of the universe lived in Rome – not Jerusalem.

 

And Rome’s yoke was a heavy one. Taxes – always more and more to pay. And woe betide the man who paid them late. Because when the Romans came collecting they always liked to leave something behind. Something to remember them by. A farmer’s body pierced by the points of their spears. A son’s face laid open by the studded soles of their sandals. A daughter’s belly swelling with the bastard child of some lecherous legionary.

 

Joel still carries the scars, and dreams of the day when he can repay the Romans for their kindnesses. It’s why he’s so fond of Benjamin’s tale. For when the Messiah comes and the prophecies are fulfilled Rome’s might will be as dust in the wind. The Saviour shall drive all before him. His sword will drip with the blood of the oppressor. And Israel will be free.

 

It’s why he still has such doubts of the Galilean: this carpenter’s son from Nazareth; this Jesus. It’s all very well to tell people that the Kingdom of God is at hand. But David’s kingdom is not about to be restored by a handful of farmers and fishermen. Rome’s legions will not be defeated by turning the other cheek.

 

“Describe it to me again, Benjamin. Tell me again of the Messiah’s birth.”

 

The old shepherd smiles into the darkness.

 

“Light and dark, Joel. Grandeur and humility. For a moment the veil that separates the material from the immaterial was lifted. We, the mortal creatures of time, beheld immortality: caught a glimpse of the eternal.”

 

“But it was a king’s birth, Benjamin. There was gold and frankincense and myrrh. Wise men from the East. You were the first to greet the Messiah: the saviour; the redeemer of Israel. You saw him.”

 

“I saw a mewling child still smeared with his mother’s blood. I saw three tired men: travel-stained and weeping. The air was filled with the stench of mortality, Joel. Kings are the children of kings, my young friend. But this child, this Jesus, was the Son of Man.”

 

“But he shall be mighty, Benjamin. He shall lead armies. He shall destroy Rome!”

 

The old shepherd looked up into the night sky: recalling the star’s brilliance; the angels’ shout; the pain of knowing.

 

“There is a kingdom greater than Israel’s, Joel. An empire larger than Rome’s. And he, the Son of Man, the blood-smeared child wrapped not in purple silk, but in the rough swaddling-cloth of a peasant girl, will lead us there.

 

“You look for a warrior-king. A man of might upon a white horse. But all Death’s horses are pale, Joel, and the Devil rides them.

 

“‘Peace on Earth’, the angels said. ‘Good will toward men’. The Galilean says it still.”

 

“And the Romans will kill him for it, Benjamin.”

 

“Yes, Joel. But he will not die.”

 

This short story was first published in The Dominion Post, The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 21 December 2012.

No Vacancy (A Christmas Story)

"And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn." - The Gospel of St. Luke. The painting is: The Arrival at Bethlehem (1897) by Luc-Olivier Merson.

"WHO WAS THAT?" Martha set down her laundry basket with a thud and cast a practised eye over her husband’s face. She’d always been able to tell when he was troubled, and forty years of marriage hadn’t made it any easier for him to hide his feelings.

"Just a young couple looking for a bed. I told them we were full and sent them on their way."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Don’t you ‘and what’ me, Joel Benjamin. Something’s troubling you – out with it!"

"Oh, I don’t know, it just didn’t feel right sending them away. The girl was so very, very young, and so very, very pregnant. And the young fellow she’s travelling with – the baby’s father, I suppose – he wasn’t much older. Seemed like a steady sort of fellow though: a carpenter by trade. Both of them from some tiny place up north. They’re down here for the Census."

Martha snorted. "Him and everybody else. Town’s full of people waiting to be registered."

"That’s what I said. I told him he’d be lucky to find accommodation anywhere. Said he knew that already, that ours was the seventh place they’d tried. I tell you, Martha, the poor lad sounded desperate. And the girl seemed ready to have her baby at any moment."

"And you sent them away."

"What else could I have done – we’re full up. There’s not a spare bed in the house."

"May the Good Lord forgive you, Joel Benjamin! How could you send that poor girl out into the night to give birth in some ditch under the stars, with no help near except a frightened boy. Have you forgotten what can happen to a woman in those circumstances? What can happen to her baby!"

"I haven’t forgotten."

The old man takes his wife in his arms, presses her head against his shoulder, feels the gentle shudder of her sobs.

"I haven’t forgotten."

Martha pushes herself free from his embrace, furiously wiping away her tears.

"Go after them, you fool! Fetch them back! In the name of the son you could not save, Joel Benjamin, fetch them back!"

The old man hurries toward the gate, pushing past his startled guests, calling the gatekeeper to him.

"Amos! Amos!"

"Master?"

"That young couple. The pregnant girl. Tall fellow, strongly built. Did you seen them?"

They passed through a little while ago – they’ll be lost in the crowd by now."

The inn-keeper steps out into the crowded street, turning his head to right and left, trying to locate the pair in the gathering darkness.

"Mary said you would come."

The old man swings ‘round to find himself face to face with the young carpenter.

"I wanted to look for another inn, but she told me to wait here – that this was the place."

"I wasn’t lying to you about the rooms, you know. There’s not a spare bed to be had. But my wife would not hear of you being turned out into the winter chill – not with your good lady so close to her time."

Martha holds out her arms to the young woman.

"Come in my dear. This is no season to be giving birth alone. And there are skilled hands here tonight. Three Parthian priests, great healers it is said, arrived at sundown from Jerusalem. They were asking after a child.

"Dozens of children here, I told them. Take your pick! But they shook their long oiled beards at me and said it was a new-born child they were seeking. Well then, I said, I don’t like your chances, because there are no …."

Martha’s eyes widened in sudden understanding.

"Mine is the child they seek", the young woman said softly, "and it is here your wise men will find him. The Magi left a prince in his palace to see a king born in your stable."

"It is not worthy, lady."

"It is holy ground. You lost a son once, Martha. Tonight, God gives you another."

This short story was originally published in The Dominion Post, The Timaru Herald, The Taranaki Daily News, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 24 December 2010.