I’m sorry, I believe I’m a day late with this, but I’m not sure it matters too much! Having missed out on the last Pause In Advent, due to our Christmas trip to the UK, I thought I’d write a Pause At Epiphany – especially as I have another character to share. This is one I particularly like, although others have told me it’s a little “self indulgent”…I don’t know. You can make your own mind up.
The music I have chosen is the hautingly beautiful Coventry Carol. I would have liked to have shared the Anne Dudley version (she arranged the Veni Emmanuel that I chose for my first Pause In Advent) but can’t find it on t’internet. Searching YouTube I found different versions, that were all rather lovely in their way, but I finally chose this for its simplicity.
It reminds me of when I acted in a Mystery Play. The scene of the slaughter of the innocents was carried out to a solo version of this carol, and was very stylised, but terribly, terribly moving. And horrifying.
And here is Leah’s story:
You ask me about that time ~ that strange, wonderful, terrible time. I can remember it as though it was yesterday, although it was over eleven years ago now, but every detail is there, imprinted in my mind, in all its joy and horror…
We were in Bethlehem, thanks to the cursed Romans. The governor insisted on a census, and even though we live in Kerioth, in the south, and even though my husband Simon has never even been to Bethlehem, much less lived here, we had to troop back there to register, because this is where his family are from originally. Never mind that he had a wife and a two year old son to bring along with him ~ we all had to travel through rough countryside to get there…together with the world and his wife, it seemed! Hundreds, thousands of people, all heading for the same place. Luckily Simon had been careful enough to send a message on ahead, and he’d reserved us rooms in an inn. We’d never have found anywhere otherwise ~ people were sleeping anywhere they could. At the inn where we were a young woman ~ no more than a girl really ~ and her husband were sleeping in the stable. Such a shame I thought, because she was heavily pregnant. In fact, the baby was born that night.
What a strange time that was. All night there was a soft sound of singing in the air ~ I had no idea where it was coming from ~ a bright light, coming from a huge star, hovering in the night sky, and shepherds coming to the stable to see the baby. They left later on, shouting and hammering on doors. “ A new king has been born!” they yelled.
A king? I thought, and went to see this baby. And yes, although he was in a drab stable, lying in a manger there was something special about him, a feeling of peace in his presence ~ not like my little one, I can tell you! And the girl, Mary, she was so young, and yet so old, so knowing in her manner. There was an air of deep joy and overwhelming sorrow, both at the same time. Not what you’d expect from a young mother.
Well, I got to know her quite well in the next few weeks. I took to popping in to speak to her, and rock the baby for a while, and she would nurse my son for a little, while he played with the woolly lamb that one of the shepherds had brought as a gift. It was sweet to see.
Then one evening I was outside taking a breath of air ~ it was our last evening there. We were due to leave for Kerioth in the morning. Our bags were packed, and the donkey well fed and ready to leave. I was in the street, as I say, when I saw the most amazing sight ~ three richly dressed men, riding camels down the little back street in Bethlehem! I could hardly believe my eyes! They were strangely dressed, and were clearly from lands afar. One had skin the colour of old, seasoned wood, and a grey, grizzled beard, another was pale, white as the moon with golden hair, falling to his shoulders, and the third was of a yellow colour, with jet black hair. Each wore velvets, and silks, and a bright hat, or cloth on their head.
“Woman,” one spoke, in a cultured, well bred voice. “We search for the child, born to be King of the Jews. We have followed his star. Where is he to be found?”
“Well, I don’t know about a King “ I said, “But the baby is out the back in a stable”, and I took them round to see him.
They entered the stable, and I expected them to laugh out loud, and tell me I’d got it wrong, that this was no King. But no, instead they fell to their knees ~ imagine, those perfect clothes in that filthy stable! ~ and produced gifts from their packs.
Funny presents for a baby, I thought, when I saw them, but then my spine chilled as I heard what they said as they presented their gifts.
“I bring gold, for a King. A King of this world and the next.”
“I bring incense for a God. A God, creator of this world and the world to come”
“I bring myrrh for the dead, to anoint and to preserve. The child will have need of it.”
And through it all his mother sat, motionless, grave, calm, storing every word.
Then they left, and I crept back to my room to sleep.
It was about midnight when the hammering on the door began. I opened it to see Mary, frantic with worry, dressed for a journey, clutching her child to her breast.
“Please,” she begged, “We must leave immediately. Let us take your donkey, for ours is old and lame, and can not move quickly. Please!”
I couldn’t say no. Simon was all for making some money from this ~ I’d told him about the gifts the men had brought, and he was thinking of the gold, but I shut him up. Of course they could have the donkey, I said. Mary clutched my hand, and gasped her thanks, and then suddenly she looked into my eyes.
“I cannot repay you with money” she said, “But I can give advice. You must dress your son as a girl tomorrow. I don’t know why, but the Lord says you must. Promise me you will!”
She was so frantic that I promised, and sent the little family away. I returned to bed, intending to forget the silly promise, but I found I couldn’t. I kept turning it, over and over in my head. And the next morning, despite Simon’s mocking, I dressed my son in girl’s clothing, I teased his curls from under a head-dress, and told him that for a game we would try to fool everyone that day into thinking he was a girl called Judith. He grinned, and nodded. So that day we stayed in the room, playing quietly, singing and talking.
And then I heard it… a woman screaming as though someone had ripped out her very soul. And a weeping. And a crying ~ all women, all in terrible, terrible anguish. Shivering I crept to the window, and saw a soldier, one of Herod’s men emerging from a house, blood dripping from his sword, and a woman clinging to a blood-stained bundle that had been her son. The scene was repeated again and again. It is too terrible for me to recount even now. The horror, the dread. Women weeping for their children slaughtered in front of their very eyes.
And then the door burst open, and a soldier stood, huge in the doorway.
“Boy or girl?” he growled, pointing his dripping sword at my son’s throat.
“Girl,” I stammered. He grunted, and then squatted down in front of him.
“What’s your name, little one?” he asked. I held my breath. The silence lengthened, and then
“Judith,” my son lisped, and ran to me to hide his face in my lap.
The soldier left, and I hugged Judas, my son to me as though I would never let him go.
We left for Kerioth the next day, with Judas held close. We had heard that the soldiers had been sent on Herod’s orders. Fearful of the boy born to be King, Herod demanded that all young boys were to be put to the sword, so that his throne would be safe. It had been that little boy of Mary’s that he had been so afraid of. Yet he had not understood that that child was not a king in any earthly sense… so hundreds of mothers had their lives shattered to make an old king feel safe, safe from something he didn’t understand
And my son? Judas? Well, I can only believe that God protected him, that he survived because he has a special destiny to fulfil when he is older… Simon thinks I am foolish to think this, he says it is a mother’s fantasy, but I believe that he was saved for a reason. . Maybe one day I will be proud of him, maybe the whole world will know his name, Judas of Kerioth, Judas Iscariot, my son, saved from death for a reason.
Wot You Said