For All the World
The babe, the son of Mary
This child is not mine.
I look at the sleeping babe, wrapped snugly, as I had wrapped each of my sisters when they were but infants. He sleeps quietly, but guilt twinges though my soul as I think of the angel’s words. The Son of the Highest. The Son of G-d.
I cannot even care for him enough to find a place for him other than the feeding trough in which he now sleeps.
Still your mind, I tell myself, and I repeat the words I have repeated to myself over and over the past few weeks. The Most High brings him to be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, as it is written.
My mother had tried to convince me to remain in Nazareth and allow Joseph to journey alone. My own father had made the trip with my uncles the month prior, and my mother had stayed behind.
There would be no explaining to her why I ought to travel with Joseph; she had already made full known her thoughts on my claims regarding the conception of the child.
So I went, with all her fretting and dark glances following me as I left the town with Joseph. G-d had shown His hand at work, and I must take such paths when He lays them before me.
Even if they end with the Son of G-d lying in a manger.
I sigh, and groan a little, as I reach forward to take the child in my arms. Joseph stirs next to me, roused from his slumber, and I hear him murmur: “Let me do it for you,” but I quickly shush him and he returns to his sleep.
I cannot hold the babe long; the pain of birth has not left my body. But for the moment, he is in loving arms and not on straw.
Still your mind, I say to myself again, though I know that I will need continual convincing that I have not made some error until the day I die. He is where he must be.
His face is peaceful, caught in the calming waves of sleep, and I feel my heart surge with love, as I have never felt it do before.
But this brings me back to my first thought.
This child is not mine.
Not truly. Or at least he is not mine alone.
The shepherds have left, but what they told Joseph and myself still turns in my mind.
Joseph had reacted with guarded surprise and even suspicion when they had arrived, three men and two boys, standing awkwardly at the entrance. Then the youngest boy had stepped forward and boldly proclaimed: “We have been told to seek the Son of G-d.”
My husband had looked back at me then, a stunned expression on his face, and I had stared at him, eyes wide. Finally, I had nodded. “Then you have found him.”
Standing silently near the manger, Joseph had watched closely as the shepherds approached. They had moved carefully so as to never touch anyone but each other, and as I had looked at their hands, I thought of what it must be like to be always unclean. I am unclean myself for a time after this birth, but I shall be cleansed. Theirs is a cycle of constant death and blood.
Yet the angels were sent to them.
I look down at this miracle in my arms, whom I have been instructed to name Yeshua — “The Lord is Salvation.”
They say the Messiah will save us from all who rule over us, and sit on the throne of Israel.
Yet the angels’ tidings went to shepherds, and the angels’ words were not of the saving of Israel from Rome.
They spoke of good news for all people, for peace over the earth, and goodwill for mankind.
I do not understand it at all — why the Son of the Most High must sleep in a manger, why his coming is heralded by shepherds, why the message of the angels does not speak of the rescuing of my land.
But this child is not mine.
He, is, I begin to think, for much, much more than I could have ever imagined.
Perhaps he is for all the world.
