The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ (3 page)

Elam shrugged away that objection. “The shops of the town will soon be open. With what I will pay you for the cloth, you can buy another and still have money to spare. Hurry and name a price, man. I must get to Jerusalem early.”

Joseph shook his head. “The cloth was a gift, the first gift to the baby. It is not for sale.”

“A gift?” Elam’s eyes narrowed and he looked quickly around the stable. Obviously no one there could afford such a gift. “Who gave it?” he demanded.

“I—I cannot say, sir.”

“You mean it was stolen, don’t you?” Elam seized upon the advantage Joseph had given him. “Then it is my duty to impound the cloth and hold it for the rightful owner.” Elam knew that if the carpenter did not divulge the name of the owner now, the cloth would probably never be claimed and in due time it would become his property at no cost.

“Joseph did not steal the cloth, master,” Jonas said. “I gave it to the child.”

“You!” Elam wheeled upon his servant. “Where would you get such a fabric as this, Jonas?”

“I wove it myself. Nights, after my work was finished.”

“You stole the wool from me, then.”

“It was made from scraps that had been thrown away. I carded and spun the wool into thread myself, and wove it upon a loom I made with my own hands.”

“You were going to sell the cloth in Jerusalem and keep the money for yourself!” Elam accused him.

“No, master.” Jonas realized fully that he was inviting harsh punishment at Elam’s hands for contradicting him. “It was to be a gift to the temple for an altar cloth.”

“If it was intended for the temple, why did you let such a valuable fabric be used for swaddling a baby?”

“The child—it was cold,” Jonas stammered. “I thought it needed the cloth more than the priests.”

Elam snorted indignantly. “You were a fool to soil such a fine piece of fabric. Especially as it belongs to me.” He turned to Joseph. “Unwrap the child and give me the cloth. I am a generous man, so I will still pay you enough to buy another, though this one is mine by right.”

Joseph shook his head. “Jonas has explained to you that he wove it after his day’s work was finished, from wool that had been cast aside. The cloth was his to do with as he chose.”

“The work of a servant belongs to the master,” Elam insisted. “That is the Law.”

“You Pharisees speak much of the Law when it is to your own benefit,” Joseph said firmly. “Let us take this question before a judge and see who is right. These men here in the stable will witness that you covet a cloth which Jonas gave the child and seek to get it for yourself.”

“I will gladly be a witness for Jonas,” a burly fellow bystander offered, glowering at Elam. “It will be good to see a Pharisee feel the weight of the Law on his own neck for a change.”

When several others pushed forward to offer themselves as witnesses, Elam hesitated. If he took this dispute before a judge, the ruling would probably be in his favor, since it would be the word of a wealthy man against his servant. On the other hand, much of the “Oral Law” governing the conduct of the Jews was not set down in writing, and each judge could interpret it according to his own conviction. If the ruling should go against him, Elam would not only lose face—an important thing to a man of his sort—but he would have failed to reach the shops of Jerusalem early and might be forced to hold his bales until tomorrow’s market.

Characteristically, the Pharisee turned his anger and frustration upon one who could not resist. “Strip to the waist,” he ordered Jonas and, going to the wall, took down a leather strap hanging there. Elam had no fear that anyone would try to keep him from flogging Jonas, for the right of the master to punish a servant was undisputed.

Jonas’s face was pale as he dropped the upper part of his robe, baring his back and shoulders. He flinched as the strap fell upon his unprotected skin, but he did not cry out. The Pharisee was skilled in punishing servants, laying on the leather with enough force to cause pain and raise an angry red welt which would be exquisitely tender for days, yet not enough to break the skin. Skin wounds could mean inflammation and even death, and a servant was too valuable a property to be destroyed simply to satisfy the owner’s anger.

Soon Jonas’s back was a crisscross pattern of red welts. The pain was excruciating but the little man bit into his lip and did not beg for mercy. Finally, though, a blow brought a slight stain of red, and then Elam, almost exhausted, tossed the leather strap aside.

“Get the animals ready while I refresh myself with wine,” he ordered curtly. “We will leave for Jerusalem at once.”

Jonas pulled up his robe and started for the courtyard where the animals were tied, but Joseph was there before him. “I should have felt the strap instead of you,” he said humbly as he loosened the tether of Elam’s pack animal for Jonas and tested the thongs lashing the bales upon its back.

Jonas managed to grin, although his back was a throbbing mass of agony. “The pain will go away. I have been flogged before.”

“And will be again, if I judge that master of yours right,” Joseph said grimly. “He was humbled in pride and purse, both tender spots for a man such as he.”

The pain lines were gone from Mary’s face when Jonas came to bid the little family farewell. Her serene beauty reminded him of the star that had shone over Bethlehem last night, and the sleeping child, too, seemed to have a radiance of its own.

“Jonas!” Elam’s sharp voice sounded in the doorway. “Stop wasting time, unless you want another beating!”

The little man hurried to pick up the tether of the pack animal. To keep the rough cloth of his garment from scraping against his tender skin, he tried to walk stiffly erect. But even that little relief was denied him, for Elam at once kicked the ass he rode into a near trot, so anxious was he to get to Jerusalem by the time the shops opened, and Jonas was forced to hurry on behind him.

Busy with his own misery while he tried to urge the reluctant pack animal along, Jonas was paying little attention to the road ahead when he heard his master’s voice ring out sharply.

“You there!” Elam called. “Don’t block the road.”

Three men, shepherds by their dress and the fact that one of them carried a crook made from the gnarled limb of a small tree, stood aside for Elam’s little procession to pass. Jonas remembered seeing other such men when traveling near Jerusalem. The flocks in this area near the Holy City and its great temple were for the most part dedicated for sacrifice upon the altar, and the shepherds who guarded them were set apart and treated with respect by all who met them.

Elam now recognized the men and pulled the ass to a stop. Jonas, plodding behind with the lead rope of the second animal, also halted.

“Are you not the shepherds of the sacred flock?” the Pharisee asked in a more pleasant tone.

“One of us is keeping the flocks today so the rest of us can come to Bethlehem,” one of the men said.

Elam frowned. Some landlord and owner was being cheated if shepherds were allowed to roam the countryside or go into the town for a cup of wine while their flocks were left poorly guarded in the field. Elam knew that many rich men in Jerusalem owned land and flocks in this area. No doubt some one of them would reward him well for discovering the shortcomings of his shepherds.

“Would your masters be pleased if they knew of this?” Elam demanded.

The taller shepherd who seemed to be the spokesman answered. “Last night something happened,” he explained. “A thing so strange that we felt it should be reported in Bethlehem.”

“What was that?”

“We were abiding in the field as is our custom when a bright light shone around us and we were sore afraid. But we heard a voice say, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.’”

As an educated man, Elam knew what was written concerning the coming of the Expected One, the Messiah who would rule over Israel and free her from domination by others. He doubted strongly that so momentous an event would be announced to ignorant shepherds; it would be the high priest in Jerusalem who would be the first to know of it—if it really had occurred. If it had, though, and the temple authorities had not heard . . . Elam was shrewd enough to realize they would pay well for information about it . . .

If he were to be the bearer of such good tidings, he had best press on and say no more about it here. “No doubt you were dreaming,” he said in a disparaging manner calculated to make the men doubt the value of what they had seen, if indeed it had any value. “Your dream has led you on a fool’s errand. The Savior of Israel would hardly be born without notice.” And kicking his mount, Elam directed it once again along the road.

Jonas did not follow at once, but beckoned the shepherds to come nearer. “Did this voice say how you would know the Christ?” he asked in lowered tones.

The tall shepherd nodded. “The angel said, ‘And this shall be a sign to you: You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’”

A great light burst in Jonas’s brain, almost as bright as had been the star last night. But first, he knew, he must make sure the shepherds did not intend to harm the babe.

“Why do you seek the child?” he asked them.

“We would worship Him, for when the angels finished speaking there was a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!’”

“Are you sure the voice said the child would be found in a manger?”

The tall shepherd looked at him keenly. “Why do you ask? What do you know of this?” he demanded.

“A child was born in Bethlehem last night, in the stable of an inn where we stayed,” Jonas explained. “I myself gave it the swaddling cloth. There was no cradle, so the baby was placed in the manger.”

“That is just as the angel described it!” the tall shepherd said excitedly. “You say you gave it the first gift?”

Jonas nodded proudly. “A swaddling cloth of finest wool, woven with my own hands!”

“Then you are more honored than we can ever be,” the shepherd told him. “But if we hurry, we will be able to worship Him too!”

“Hurry, Jonas!” Elam’s querulous voice floated back along the road. “I must sell the goods early, so I can make my gift to the temple today!”

Jonas left the shepherds and followed his master, but he no longer noticed the pain from his flayed back. Nothing Elam could do would be able to hurt him now. For by some strange miracle which he did not even try to understand, he had been singled out for a great honor, for a privilege greater than had been given any man—that of making the first gift to the Son of God.

Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord.

Luke 2:22

Before leaving Nazareth for Bethlehem to list himself and Mary with the Roman census takers, Joseph had decided he would remain in the City of David for a while to see if there were not a better market there than in Galilee for fine cabinet work. So leaving Mary and the baby in the stable of the inn, early that morning he went to seek a dwelling place for them.

Some notice had been attracted by the arrival of the shepherds, for when they found Mary and the child still in the stable, they spread the story that they had recounted to Elam and Jonas. A few who heard it marveled, but they could see that the child and the mother seemed no different from anyone else, except, perhaps, in the beauty of both. The husband, too, was obviously an ordinary man, for he spoke of setting up a carpenter’s shop in Bethlehem to ply his trade as he had in Galilee. Many therefore thought the shepherds’ tale nothing more than a dream.

Before nightfall Joseph was able to find a house which, though small, would serve to shelter his family. Since both he and Mary were of the line of David, they had kinsfolk in the city and so experienced little trouble in establishing themselves, Joseph taking up his usual trade of carpenter, cabinetmaker, and builder.

It was written in the Law of the Lord that every firstborn male child should be called holy to the Most High and accordingly must be redeemed from a priest for a token price. The earliest time this could be accomplished under the Law of Moses was thirty-one days after the birth of the child. A second provision called for the rite of purification of the mother after childbirth, but this could not be carried out until after the full course of forty-one days following the birth of a son, eighty-one days after the birth of a daughter.

When the required days of Mary’s purification according to the Law had passed, Joseph took her and the child to Jerusalem to celebrate in the temple the twofold rite, redemption of the child and a sacrifice of purification for the mother. Both ceremonies could have been performed before the chazan or leader of the congregation, at the Bethlehem synagogue, but since they were only a short distance away and were both of the royal line, and devout besides, they naturally went to the fountainhead of their faith, the great temple recently built by Herod the king.

Approaching Jerusalem by the Hebron road which just outside the city joined that from the seaport of Joppa, they passed almost under the walls of the citadel of Herod looming as a grim and forbidding reminder that Rome ruled here. Its three towers, called Hippicus, Phasael, and Mariamne, the last after Herod’s beautiful wife whom he had murdered in a fit of jealousy, enabled observers to watch practically all activities going on in the city.

Entering by the Gennath Gate, they found themselves in the Upper City. Here was the timber market where beams were sold for supporting the flat rooftops of houses, a market for wool and cloth, such as Elam and Jonas had brought to Jerusalem, and foundries for smelting and shaping implements and utensils of copper.

From the stronghold of Herod in the northeast corner of the wall, the northern limit of the Upper City, where many of the richer people of Jerusalem lived, was marked by a wall running eastward to the western boundary of the large sanctuary area. North of this a suburb had grown up, spilling outside the city wall and spreading across the hilltops and past the skull-like outcropping of rock called Golgotha to the four-square tower of Antonia built by Herod at the very corner of the sanctuary.

Whatever evil Herod had done—and his faults were many—he had at least in its temple, under construction now for many years and still not complete, given Israel one of the most beautiful structures in the entire world. Space for it in the midst of the broad area of the sanctuary, encompassing some twenty-six acres, had been gained by excavating and flattening the hilltop and erecting a broad undergirding of solid masonry walls.

The outer part of the temple area formed the Court of the Gentiles. Beyond this, graven tablets in Greek, the most widely understood and spoken language in the Roman Empire, gave a grim warning:

Let no Gentile enter the limit and enclosure of the sanctuary. He who is caught will carry the guilt on himself, because death will follow.

The two sides of the Court of the Gentiles marked the boundaries of the Royal Porch. Its four rows of marble columns had been polished until they shone like gold. Roofed over with timbers hewn from cedar, they turned the area into a shady cloister where the teachers, called rabbis, held forth daily to any who would listen.

Next to the Court of the Gentiles was a section set off by a balustrade of stone, and beyond this a high wall by which the holy area itself could be turned into a fortress, as had been done on more than one occasion. Nine gates broke the solid line of the wall. One led to the Court of Women, beyond which was the Court of Israel, and still farther the Court of Priests. In the center of this latter court was the altar of burnt offering.

Strictly speaking, the various courts were outside the temple itself, which stood behind the altar. In the temple proper was first a vestibule, next the Holy Place, and finally the Holy of Holies, which only the high priest could enter, and then only on special occasions. The structure was built of white marble and its roof, towering to a height of nearly a hundred and fifty feet, was covered over with gold. True indeed was the saying, “He that has not seen the temple of Herod has never known what beauty is.”

To a person visiting the temple for the first time, the outer court resembled a marketplace with its constant din of voices filling the air as animals were sold for the sacrifices, which were practically continuous from morning to night. Once the day’s sacrifices had begun, the altar quickly took on much the appearance of a slaughterhouse and the priests that of butchers. Nor was this surprising, considering the fact that during one Passover period more than ten thousand lambs might be killed there.

The regular daily sacrifices in the temple included the burnt offering, for Israel celebrated both morning and evening, and the daily offering of meat and drink, as well as private devotions of thanksgiving, expiation by individuals for trespass and sin, and removal of the many ceremonial impurities which a person could easily incur by breaking one of the thousandfold prohibitions of the Law.

Support for the priests who carried out the temple worship came not only from their portion of the money offerings, which had to be in the Tyrian shekel, but also from taxes upon the crops, the tithe, the
hallah
levied upon dough for making bread, and many others. The temple itself required a tribute of half a shekel from every male Jew above twenty. When coupled with the levies put upon the people by Rome, these taxes for the support of the temple and the priestly hierarchy constituted a burden under which the population constantly groaned. Small wonder then that the tax collectors, Jews called publicans who worked for the Roman masters, were the most hated people in Israel.

Since the redemption of the firstborn child could be carried out before any priest, Joseph and Mary sought out one who stood at the entrance to the Court of Priests in a booth devoted to this purpose. First came the formal presentation of the babe, kicking naked upon the swaddling cloth of fine wool so that the priest could see if it were free of all blemishes. Next two short benedictions were pronounced, one for the Law of Redemption and the other for the gift of a firstborn son, in itself a sign of favor from the Most High. The redemption money, of the “Tyrian weight” required for all financial transactions in the temple area, was then paid.

As Mary wrapped the infant Jesus once again in the swaddling cloth, her happiness was very great, for He had now been offered ceremonially to the Lord, as Abraham had offered Isaac even to the point of preparing to slay him with his own hands, and had been ritually redeemed. Leaving the baby with Joseph, she now went to the Court of Women. There she deposited in the third of the thirteen chests, or “trumpets,” set along one wall, the price of a pair of turtledoves as stated by a priest standing nearby. When the blast of a silver trumpet announced the kindling on the golden altar of the incense offering for which she had helped to pay, Mary presented herself with a number of other women who were then directed to stand on either side of the Nicanor Gate, at the top of the fifteen steps leading from the Court of Women to the Court of Israel where the men gathered. Here, without actually being in the Court of Israel where her presence was forbidden, Mary could witness the sacrifice. This was quickly performed, the prayers of purification intoned, and the ceremony completed.

On returning to the outer court, Mary saw an old man coming to where Joseph stood waiting for her with Jesus in his arms, a blanket around the swaddling cloth. She hurried to them for she did not know what such attention from a stranger might mean, and arrived, a little breathless, just as the old man spoke.

“Shalom,” he said courteously to both. “My name is Simeon.”

They returned the greeting politely for they could see that he was quite at home in the temple and judged him to be a priest.

“I shall not see death before I have seen the Lord Christ,” Simeon explained, and held out his arms to take the child.

Mary had supposed that only she, Joseph, Elisabeth, and Zacharias knew the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ conception and birth. But now, it seemed, Simeon too had somehow learned that the child sleeping peacefully within the blanket was more than just another baby. Eager to learn everything she could about her child, Mary nodded to Joseph to let Simeon take Jesus in his arms.

Raptly the old man looked down at the face of the sleeping infant, then lifting his eyes upward, he spoke in prayer: “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”

Joseph looked at the old man in astonishment, as it was strictly forbidden a pious Jew to reveal anything of his faith to a Gentile or have any near contact with the heathen. Yet be was familiar enough with the sacred writings of the prophets which were read each Sabbath in the synagogue to know that Simeon was referring to the words of Isaiah concerning the Expected One.

“Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against,” Simeon went on, handing the baby to Mary. Then his face grew grave as he concluded, “Yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Suddenly afraid, Mary pressed Jesus so tightly against her breast that He woke and began to cry.

“Come, Joseph,” she said quickly. “Our business here is finished. Let us go back to Bethlehem.”

As they were leaving the outer court, an old woman stopped them. They recognized her from previous visits to Jerusalem as a prophetess named Anna who spent most of her waking hours in the temple serving God. And since there could be no possible harm in this pious woman of great age, they stopped courteously to answer her greeting.

“Blessed are you,” Anna said to Mary as she looked at the child. For your Son shall bring redemption to all who shall look upon Him.”

Mary and Joseph left as quickly as they could without being rude to the old priestess. They had been forewarned by the angel that the child Mary was to bear would be different from others, but so long as only a few people had known of it, they had not been afraid. Now it had begun to seem that many shared the knowledge, and if this were so, word of it might easily come to Herod, who had already ruthlessly exterminated everyone with any claim to the throne of Israel, however remote, even to the point of executing his own sons.