Good morning. My name is Caspar, and I’m a senior fellow at the Babylonian Institute for Astrological Studies. We - that is my colleagues and I - have waited a long time to tell the story of our long journey to Palestine because, I tell you frankly, we didn’t know what to make of it. What we found was so different from what we expected that we all had to rethink our whole approach to scholarship, not to mention religion and history. But I should start at the beginning.
I had been working for some years on interpreting some old manuscripts from the Royal Babylonian archives and correlating them with the Sybelline oracles which a Roman colleague had sent me when I got a letter from the Temple of the Stars in Persepolis. A priest named Melchior had been studying the prophetic writings from the time of Cyrus, and had been joined the previous year by a graduate student, Balthazar, who had traveled all the way from the Astrological College on Cos to track down some discrepancies in their tables. At any rate they asked if I had run across any references to the Hebrew prophecies about the coming of a great king.
Well, of course I had. After all, most of the Hebrews hadn’t returned to their homeland after Cyrus released them from their exile, and there were a number of Hebrew scholars right here in Babylon. It wasn’t my field of expertise, but you can’t help hearing things. I checked with them, and confirmed that there was indeed such a prophecy. In fact, there were many. The earliest reference they had was from a Canaanite prophet over a thousand years ago, a chap named Balaam, who reportedly said, “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near-- a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.. One out of Jacob shall rule.” [Num 24:17,19]
So I wrote back and the next thing I knew Melchior and Belthazar were
on knocking at the door of the Institute with ten servants and fifteen camels loaded down with scrolls and all the other paraphernalia needed to make a long and dusty trip as close to luxurious as any pair of pampered priests could desire. And before you charge me with the same habits, let me tell you I’m a scholar, not a priest. They’re called on regularly to consult at the Persian court, and have to keep up appearances. And besides, people are always slipping them a little something - everything from priceless pearls to bars of gold - to guarantee a favorable reading of the stars. So they’re used to luxury. But if anyone wants to pick my brain, they come to my study and breathe my dust.
Well, that’s neither here nor there. You don’t care about our domestic arrangements. The long and short of it is that they had cross-correlated the Hebrew prophecies they had with the current astronomical observations, and had come to the conclusion that the time was at hand. By the end of that ten-day we had verified their interpretations against the even older manuscripts the Jewish teachers had - and incidentally picked up some additional confirmation - and convinced even me that we were at a cusp of history that any scholar would sell his sister to slavers to participate in. And while they were pointing out the unusual alignment of stars in the heavens that had started them digging for explanatory prophecies, we saw what became the final proof of their hypothesis. A star streaked across thy night sky, moving from Bakhtria in the NE directly toward Judea. And as it faded from view it seemed to leave a luminous line connecting the old fixed, familiar stars with the new one Melchior had discovered, as clear as any road marked on a map, and we knew we were being guided by the gods.
The journey from took about as long as we expected it to, 8 moon cycles from beginning to end, and the new star seemed to grow brighter every time we re-verified our calculations. We had to head north along the Euphrates before turning south, and the star to our left seemed to pull at us, as if it knew we were heading in the wrong direction. The second half of our journey, south through Damascus, we were heading in the direction the star wanted us to go
When we finally crossed the Jordan river just north of Herod’s capital city of Jerusalem, it was time to get our final directions. Of course we could have continued on in the same direction, but eventually we would wind up wading out into the Middle Sea, so we figured the birthplace would be somewhere between Jerusalem and the coast.
We were received warmly in Jerusalem. The common people pointed and stared, which we were used to, but we didn’t get any of the hostility we had been warned to was a possibility. The Jewish people frown on astrology and divination; they seem to think it’s offensive to their god. What nonsense, I had thought back in those days; everything we did was intended to honor the gods. Why should this one be insulted by our endeavors? I thought they were ignorant and provincial, even bigoted. As it happens, I was the ignorant one. But that comes later. Our welcome to King Herod’s court was even warmer. Of course by this time we had discovered that we weren’t the only people who knew the prophecy of the coming king; the only piece we had that they didn’t was the timing. So we were pretty sure that Herod’s religious advisors would have the final piece of the puzzle, the actual location.
And they did. King Herod himself asked to speak to us in person, and questioned us very closely about our studies, and what we had seen, and the
length of our journey. He called for his chief priests and scribes, and after conferring together they bowed to the king and told him that they believed the answer to their question was in the writing of their prophet Micah, and they quoted the relevant passage: “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” [Mic 5:2] We asked if we could have a copy of the scroll, since it was apparently not in the Babylonian archives. (I’m sure we would have taken special note of such a specific reference.) They conferred again, approaching Herod for a private word, and then granted our request. They would need time for the scribes to make a fair copy, but it would be ready in about ten days. King Herod made an expansive gesture and produced a smile much too broad for a monarch of his reputation to bestow on a handful of foreign supplicants. “Would we be good enough to return for it, and to tell of us of the child at the same time?” He then added, almost as an afterthought, “And besides, I should like to go and worship this young king myself.” Something didn’t smell right about his attitude, but I brushed the thought aside. This was their own nation’s brightest hope, scholars had told me. The dearest wish of every true Hebrew was for this king to come and fulfill the prophecies. I should have trusted my instincts.
Although it took us less than a day to reach Bethlehem from Jerusalem, we camped outside the town so as to have time to prepare, time to change from our drab travel robes for attire suitable for a royal audience. In the morning, with the sun’s full light on the town, we were a little dismayed. It was an ordinary little town, just the same sort of shabby mud-brick houses as dozens of others we had passed upon our journey. The three of us found ourselves casting puzzled glances at one another, but no one said anything. We sent one of the servants, a clever fellow named Yitzak whom we had taken on just north of Damascus, to make inquiries in the village about boy children born any time in the last year, but especially 8 moons ago when we had seen the star. He wasn’t to mention prophecy or kings, but only ask if there was anything unusual about any of the births. Yitzak came back saying that everyone he had spoken to believed we must be talking about a baby born to a traveling couple named Joseph and Mary during the census, about whom some strange stories had been circulating. With our directions in hand, we proceeded to the next step.
Our presentation gifts had been carefully packed at the beginning of the journey, wrapped in layers of soft wool to protect them from damage. The servants crowded around us as we carefully unfolded the wrappings, trying to get a glimpse of the princely offerings. The gold was the heaviest, at half a talent it took Balthazar’s brawny frame to carry it. Melchior and I took the frankincense and myrrh, respectively. Light as they were, each of them was worth more than the gold. A jar fashioned of flawless alabaster, with a stopper of a single ruby, held the frankincense. The myrrh was in a carved box made of a very rare pale green stone from a country far to the east of India; I doubt that anyone in this country had ever seen its like. We weren’t exactly dragging our feet, but now that our journey was coming to its end I felt hesitant, almost reluctant, as if we were stepping across a threshold into a new world, a world from which we could never return.
Something in me felt we should stretch out the final moments as long as we could. But we were properly attired, our gifts were in order, and the time had come.
The streets were just as dingy and unremarkable as the rest of the town. Our directions took us to a house that was hardly more than a shack. We stopped and looked at one another in horror and disbelief. This was the home of a king? But we had come this far, and it would be foolish beyond belief to ignore the prophecies, our scholarship, and the long journey just because things weren’t what we expected. So we knocked on the wall next to the door into the courtyard, and when a voice spoke from within introduced ourselves, and entered, leaving the servants outside.
A young woman, Mary, I presumed, sat on a low stool next to the hearth, holding a baby not yet a year old. Joseph stood next to a workbench, with tools and some kind of half-finished wooden object laid aside as he observed our entry. When I told them why we were there - somehow I seem to have become the group’s spokesman - they weren’t at all surprised or taken aback. They glanced at each other with a kind of private understanding, and Joseph said, “You’ve come to the right place. Our son Yeshua is the one foretold.” Mary made a welcoming gesture, and we moved forward with our gifts and knelt awkwardly on the pounded earth floor. Balthazar made a little grunt of relief as he laid the gold down before Mary’s feet, but we held the frankincense and myrrh up for Mary to take. Of course she couldn’t, with the baby in her arms, but as Joseph moved forward to take the gifts Mary put the child in Balthazar’s arms. The shawl fell away from the baby’s face, and we saw him for the first time
His eyes were open, bright and steady. I felt as though he could see into my very soul. I couldn’t move. My fine clothing felt tawdry and vulgar. The expensive gifts we had chosen so carefully suddenly became cheap trinkets. The air around us seemed to tingle and glow. I forgot to breathe. I tried to tell myself, “This is just a baby.” A flood of warmth entered me and I could breathe again and I knew that this was not “just a baby.” This - person - I groped for the right word. The only one that came close was “god.” There was some unearthly power contained in that small form, and yet totally unlike any idea I had ever had before about what a god would be. The room swam. My life of scholarship and prestige, my delight at being sought after from every corner of the earth insight into the divine mysteries was revealed to me as the most pointless vanity imaginable. “How am I to serve this god?” I wondered. Apparently I spoke aloud, because Joseph answered me. “There’s only one God,” he said, “and he told us that the most important thing of all was 'to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in obedience to him.' [Mic 6:8] The prophets tell us that the Messiah - this very little one you see before you - comes to bring everyone under God’s rule, so that justice and peace will triumph at last.”
It was near mid-day before we rose to leave, still dazed and speechless from what we had experienced. The servants were sprawled snoring against the wall under the small window; I wondered if they had listened. We woke them and returned to our camp. Over the evening meal each of us started to speak any number of times, but never managed to complete a sentence. What had happened? Who were we? We were different, that’s all we knew. Scholar and priests, guardians of the mysteries, were shaken out as empty as dried gourds. What would we become as this strange new God took over our lives?
We returned to Babylon by the southern route. Each of us had dreamed of danger, a divine warning of Herod’s planned treachery. The Micah scroll we had wanted remained in Jerusalem. I submitted my resignation from the Institute, and went to study with the Jewish scholars who had helped us before. We still write, the three of us, when we can find a courier. Melchior has been accepted into the Jewish community in Persopolis, even going so far as to be circumcised. It’s hard for Balthazar to communicate, though, as he has gone to study with the most intense of the Jewish communities, the Essenes, somewhere down near the Sea of Salt.
We are all sure that the story isn’t over. A birth is a beginning, and the promises of redemption are clear, but death comes to us all. Or does it? I cannot bring myself to believe that the life we touched in that plain little house can be snuffed out. What will the day of his death bring? It will have to be something completely new, unlike any other. I long for that day with an intensity that I cannot explain. On that day I will understand.
