Holidays - Seasons Greetings!

Down the road from Nain and Herod’s new city, Tiberias, thundering and clamping across the hard road of the plain there came a troop of Roman soldiers. These did not belong in the country, for no part of the land was, as yet, a Roman province; but they were continually coming and going either on errands from their masters, the governors of neighboring provinces, to Herod’s court, or they were passing through the country from Damascus and the eastern frontier to the sea. This troop, of about twenty men, was evidently on its way to Jerusalem, probably with dispatches for Herod; for had it been going to the sea it would have traveled by the road that ran back of Nazareth.

Without even drawing rein, the soldiers came hurtling in among the groups of men and women and children seated upon the ground at their meal. The terrified shouts of men, the screams of women as they caught up children from under the iron shoes of the horses, the high, frightened clamor of all, brought Mary quickly to her feet and sent her running back across the little stream toward the rest place.

Half the men of the troop had now dismounted and were kicking and cuffing the men, countrymen, merchants and strangers alike. With rough curses in the Coast Greek which all the East was now learning, the soldiers commanded water brought for their horses, and food.

While some men scurried to do the bidding of the soldiers, others edged sullenly out of the circle of the place, out of reach of spearheads, and stood angry and uncowed. These were the countrymen of Galilee, men of a yet unconquered race, who would be last of all Israel to be broken under the yoke of Rome.

The women still cried out in terror as they saw blows falling, and one child crying frightfully was heard above all the rest. A tall soldier, beating a Damascus pearl merchant with the flat of his sword, to hurry his service, stopped at the child’s shrill crying.

“I’ll stop him, mother,” he said gruffly. And before the terrified mother could turn away the child was snatched from her arms and swung high in the air. The tall soldier turned and shouted to a great red-bearded companion who still sat his horse, his spear flung carelessly across his thighs:

“Catch him on the spearhead, Titus Rufus.”

The red-bearded one brought his spear to position, and, even as the mother fell clutching at his knees, the tall soldier swung and tossed the child carelessly, with perfect aim, straight at the point of the spear.

At the last possible instant the red-bearded one raised the spear slightly, and deftly caught the child by an arm as the little body came flying toward him. Just as deftly, he tossed the child back to the mother where she lay upon the ground.

Mary stopped at the edge of the little circle, unable to move or cry out, her body and her will paralyzed in fright and mother horror.

The woman finding her baby again in her arms and unhurt swooned upon the ground. Mary ran forward picking the child up on one arm and kneeling to support the woman with the other. The soldiers stood, laughing roughly, but with a sort of coarse good nature. Then Mary looked up at them. Her eyes were lighted with the Motherhood of all the earth. The men did not know what it was they saw in that look of the Jewish maiden, but the rough laughter fled instantly from their faces. Awkwardly their eyes fell, and they turned away hastily to their business of food and drink.

Mary understood. They had not meant to harm the child. It was one of their tricks, a diversion. They had practiced it many many times, so that they did it expertly and with almost no danger to the child. From Spain in the distant west to the Euphrates that trick was acted. This woman, now opening her eyes from her faint and looking wildly around for the now quiet child, would never lose the fear of the Roman name. She would transmit it to generations unborn. If they had actually killed the child it might not have had upon this woman the effect of vague unreasoning fear that this play would have. And this man child: the tale would be told him until he would believe that he remembered it. He would even boast it to his fellows around the village well. He would grow up to hate Rome. But even in his boasting there would be that nameless, world-covering fear of that careless, ruthless power. Over all the world how many thousands of Roman soldiers had played that game of toss and catch! How many millions of mothers and men children would carry the memory of it through all their lives and breathe the terror of it into other lives!

Nazareth stood by the highway where men and armies of all the world came and went west and east. Mary knew the talk of her people. They were not a people shut in and narrowed to a belief that Jerusalem was the center of the world, as the people of Judea thought. She had never before seen Roman soldiers at so near a view, but her imagination, quickened now by suffering and much thinking, was able to construct the power of the mighty world empire out of the bearing and the looks of these men.

She saw them mount carelessly, without a look or a thought for the angry, vengeful men who stood about. She saw them ride on their way across the plain, and as she took up her journey behind them she somehow understood that her own life and her own problem had taken on a new breadth, a wider and more terrible aspect, from the sight of these men.

Her King was to sit on the throne of David, and He was to rule the world. But how could He rule the world, how, even, could He come to the throne of David while that mighty, engulfing power of Rome existed to throttle the earth? With sudden insight, she saw the grip of Rome on all the world and she knew that there could be no king of Israel, there could be no real king anywhere unless that king should first conquer Rome.

She did not foresee all that was to come. She did not perceive the three centuries of blood and stake and un-ending martyrdom that must come before her King should conquer Rome. But the horizons of her vision moved out almost illimitably in those few moments while she watched the flying troop. She understood that her King was not destined for the mere work of liberating the Jewish nation. Only the little and narrowing traditions and views of the people had reduced Him to that. Mary saw that He must indeed be the Prince of the whole world. She understood, with trembling, that there could be no truce, no peace, between Him and this tremendous Power of the West. The struggle would be a death grip between the two.

Her King must stand in the light of the entire world, with the entire world, Rome, against Him!

It was another of those things to be kept in her heart. She hurried onward, feeling more than ever the weight and the terrible loneliness of her soul under all these things. More than ever did she need and hunger for that other woman, that woman who would understand.

She traveled swiftly, for her heart was drawn by its need, and she was not burdened by the innumerable bundles which other foot travelers of the road carried. The East, then as now, was continually on the move, on visit or ceremonial; and usually it traveled in families and carried a large part of its household goods with it. Mary passed opulence snailing along in ox carts, and poverty, abject but patient and cheerful, staggering on under its meager, string-tied possessions. As she saw the sun declining toward the hills of Dothan, she was minded that it would be wise for her to attach herself to one of these humble family parties that she might have the protection of their company for the night. But her haste would not accommodate itself to the easy, shuffling pace of those whom she passed; and, too, the solitude, the calm and peace which the road had given her had become very dear. She was loath to have it broken by chatter and explanations with people who would not understand the necessity of this long, lone journey of hers.

Mary rose up and swiftly, with eager, trembling fingers and noiseless, hurrying feet went about her meager little preparations for her journey.

It was a journey of a hundred miles and more. It was a way filled with perils and terrors for a girl alone, and Mary must go alone. She must face the odium of going secretly and furtively, for she could not tell anyone why she must go. But these things, the road and its perils and the thoughts of those she was leaving, had no power to deter her. The need of her soul for that other woman was imperative, peremptory. There was nothing, nothing large enough or strong enough to turn her heart back from that which it craved!

In the whispering dawn Mary left the house and made her way down the straggling hillside to the great road that ran past Nazareth from the sea to the hill country and Jerusalem.

There would be no need to ask the directions of the road. This great highway ran straight from Ptolemais, the Acre of a later day, through the heart of the land to Jerusalem. Romans, Greeks and Jews all knew it. It was the great artery of trade by which the West came to Israel.

Mary had almost no money for the journey, but that was little matter. The kindly hospitality of the road would not let her suffer. Kindness and charity to the stranger were not only traits of her people but they were enjoined most strictly by the Law. David himself had seen to the building of rest places along the unpeopled parts of the roads and the tradition of the sacredness of the wayfarer held strong among all the folk.

The real dangers of the road were from Herod’s hired soldiers and the bands of outlawed men living in the hills, half bandits, half patriots, whom Herod’s suspicions and jealous cruelties had driven into this way of life. The long, bloody reign of this Idumean king was drawing to dose in gloom and distrust. Fear, hate, rebellion were rife in the land.

The iron hand of power and repression was strong on every road. Soldiers were quartered over all the land. But always, just out of reach of the soldiers, in the difficult passes of the hills, lurked men watching for a chance to cut off some detached troop of soldiers or to plunder some band of infidel merchants who brought the abominated things and customs of the heathen into the land.

Mary knew all these things, but she had no real fear of them. She was following the need of her soul and the voice of the Angel. No harm could come to her. These things belonged all to the lesser, the ordinary parts of life. Her way was set above them. She could not escape the natural trepidations of a girl alone on a dangerous road. But over these and past them she must walk with steady, hurrying feet.

Before the sun came up behind the rounded height of Tabor she was well on her way across the rolling plain of Esdrelon, with the villages of Nain and Endor in the hills to her right. A beautiful land, a goodly land, this rich, dark plain; the heavy greens of the early Spring showing vividly against the soft black earth. The sheep dotting the round of the encircling hills, the oxen grunting on their way to the day’s toil, the onion beds in the flat black earth, the budding vines on the distant hillsides, the new wheat glistening with the dew on the wavy plain, all told of a country blessed in unbounded plenty.

But the plenty of the land was not for the moiling men and women who even at this hour of the morning were bending to their work in the fields. The tribute to Caesar, the wild extravagances of Herod, and more than all the rapacities of the tax-gatherers themselves took the products of the toil; took the fodder from the treading ox, took from the laborer his wage, took the heart from the willing people. Their patient, stooping backs were to Mary, as her eyes swept over the plain, a picture of Israel itself, the good land, and the land chosen of God, but bowed and harrowed under the drag of the oppressor. How long? Oh God of the fathers!

Nearly seventy years had passed since the terrible Pompey came storming the gates of the holy temple. And never a day of peace, never a night of rest and happiness had come in all that time either to Israel or to the people. Turmoil, slaughter, unrest, misery; these things were in the fingers of the hand of the great oppressor of the West. Seventy years of captivity worse than ever were the years in Babylon had been the portion of the land and the people. How long? Oh God on high! Mary breathed the supplicating question that was in the heart and on the lips of all the people. Then her soul trembled in sudden fear and adoration as she thought of the answering secret that was hidden in her own heart.

Mid-day found Mary resting alone under the shade of a giant terebinth that stood near the junction of the road from Main with the great Roman road which she traveled. There was a rest place at the meeting of the two roads, a khan such as have been the roadside inns of the East from all memory, with a walled corral and food and water for the beasts and some slight shelter for men. But Mary had continued on past the rest place and across the little stream that drained the plain toward the west. The whole wealth of the plain lay spread before her eyes, for at one side of the road the country stretched away in a gentle fall toward the chasm of the Jordan while at the other a broader and a longer slope reached down even to the distant sea.

The quiet, mid-day beauty of the country under the haze of the hot Spring sun, the peaceful lull that had fallen over the scene as men rested for a little, even the hum of the wayfarers at the rest place, threw a gentle curtain over the tired senses of the young girl so that she came to peace, a grateful peace with all outer things, and her soul was able to enter undisturbed into its holy of holies. Since the Angel had left her, she had not known such peace, such holy content and confidence. Now she was sure that the Angel had indeed meant her to take this journey in this way.

She was not, however, left long to enjoy the peace of her solitude and calm.

Mary was alone; alone with the Word that was in her heart!

She did not realize that of all the people in the entire world she was the most alone. She only knew that the light of the Angel’s presence was gone; leaving but a dim, pale morning in its stead. She knelt on a little time in the breathless, empty silence of the little room; not thinking, nor praying, nor wondering; but adoring in simplicity and a holy fear.

When she arose and went out again to her work, she came upon a world all new: a world that had been subtly and infinitely changed for her.

It was true that the white flocks dotted the hills as always. Below the village men and women were hurrying out to the fields of the plain, as happened every morning. The flowers on the rutted hillsides wore the same colors that they had worn yesterday morning. The thread came twirling through her fingers in the wonted way. But these were only the outer and cruder points of contact of the world. The soul of the world had been changed to Mary. She had been picked up and put in the very center of all. With her God had begun the Salvation of the soul of the world!

The idea was infinitely greater than the dream of Israel to which Mary had been listening all her life. It was greater than Mary. It was greater than earth itself. Mary did not realize it now. But she was in the presence of it. Already it had taken its hold upon her. The work of salvation had begun.

The first, the single, the overwhelming impression was of loneliness.

In the past, when Mary had dreamed of the coming of the King, there had always come before Him some wonderful, revealing portent. The daughter of David whom God would thus honor would be pointed out to all the people by some work of His hand. She would be known instantly. The people would acclaim her with a joy and a pride proportioned to the depth of their longing through the years. Her name would be on every tongue. It would be written in every Jewish heart.

How different was this reality! There was no one to acclaim her. No man or woman knew that secret which God had hidden in her breast. None would have understood. She felt herself set apart, removed from all others of her kind. There was a seal upon her lips; God had set a seal upon her heart. Never again would she see or think or feel as others did.

Because she was the most perfect of God’s human creations, Mary was perfectly and intensely human. She loved her kind with sympathy and a depth of understanding that made her capable of being the mother of all. And because she was human she craved love and understanding in return. How gladly she would have breathed her secret into the heart of every daughter of Juda! But that was denied her.

She was a woman facing the most momentous thing that ever came to woman of this world, and her heart turned instinctively to other women, to look for counsel and understanding. But where was there a woman living in the world who could help her in this?

She went the accustomed round of her daily duties with the grave, serene manner of every day, but with heart aching in loneliness and fearsome bewilderment. Those about her, of her own household, were the last to whom she could have confided her awesome secret. Instinct, sharpened by suffering and apprehension, told her in what manner her revelation would be received by them.

She could fairly feel the smiles of patronizing disbelief with which the elders would brush away her dream, as they would call it. She could hear, in prospect, the very words in which the girls of her age would first deride and then blame her presumption. Mary was one of themselves. Did not all know her? Who was she to arrogate this great thing to herself?

Even the little children would learn that there was something strange about her and would stare at her!

She could not; oh, she could not bare the wonderful glory of her secret to incredulity, to comment, to derision!

Whither, then, could her heart turn? Contact with those about her began to weigh sorely upon her spirit. At times it seemed that her lips would no longer hold back the secret which came rushing to them. It seemed that she must cry it out in the face of all. Then it seemed that she must fly, fly from the sight and hearing of men and women, to the high hills and the desert beyond, to hide herself and her secret from the eyes and ears of all. She must shut herself away, she must wander the world alone and unknown, to guard her secret from eyes that stared and ears that listened, unbelieving!

Then, late one night, when all were sleeping, Mary prayed with tears to God; for all this was more than a maiden could bear. And the words of the Angel came to her in answer:

“Thy cousin Elizabeth.”

Mary remembered what she had passed over in the wonder and bewilderment of her own secret, how the Angel had told her that God had touched the aging years of Elizabeth and had wrought a miracle in them.

Now she knew why the Angel had shown this to her.

He was the Angel of God’s wisdom. He had foreseen her perplexity, her trouble, and these tears. And he had pointed out to her the one person in the world who would be able to understand.

The need, the hunger, of her heart for understanding, for another woman’s heart to which she might entrust her secret, took hold of her. She knew that roads could not carry her swiftly enough, until she could come to that older woman with the burden of her soul.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace-! The anthem came from Heaven to Mary. Even in the veil of the shadow, her soul had been the first of all earth to hear Heaven singing its King.

And to her alone was it given in that hour to hear and know the song of the earth which the voices of Heaven had awakened and which was pealing now around all the earth in high, shrill, heart-melting sweetness.

There were tears in that song of earth, tears through which the song came bursting in swelling, straining joy. There was pain in that song, pain that was earth old, pain that had known no ceasing; and every pain was fused now into the high, glad note of glory triumphing. And there was patience and long travail in that song of earth, patience and the illimitable courage of suffering; and these things sang now all in glory to God. For it was the song of the women, the cry of the daughters of earth.

Eve sang in the terrifying, unknown loneness of the first birth pangs of earth. Rachael sang it to God in the sorrow of her barrenness. The benighted, the weak, the unguided, the motherless sang it in all the days and all the ways of the world.

Now it was the song of women from whom the yoke was being lifted. It was the glad, ecstatic cry of Motherhood come into its own. It was Woman, at last, coming to the shrine and throne which is her place in the world.

Mary heard the weeping of the Woman in the Garden, as she crept trembling away from the sight of the Lord. But now in the voice of that weeping there was the joy of the Promise fulfilled. The mother of earth cried to all her daughters of the ages that her rebuke and theirs was taken away. God was faithful. No more would He multiply sorrow unto them and unto their conception. No more should they bring forth in sorrow. For the head of the serpent was crushed. Eve saw it and was glad, and her daughters through all the earth cried with her, out of sorrow, out of travail, out of long enduring patience; crying out the glory of God in the Babe that was born to them all.

It was Motherhood and Infancy, the miracle of the world’s existence, crowned now in the Godhead of the Babe that lay in the manger.

In the Light that came from Heaven Mary saw the daughters of earth as they had been from the beginning, until now.

She saw the yoke which man in sinful cruelty and strength had forced upon the weaker one.

Out of the dim past there came trooping the millions of women, bearing chains, the immemorial spoil and loot of the conquering male. Out of the caves and the wild places of earth they came, in their eyes the look of the hunted. From out of burning cities they were led, in weeping leaden-footed bands, ever turning for a last look at the flames that rose over their dead. Out of the fields they were driven, still yoked to the beasts of burden at whose side they had been driven to work. Always the misery, always the loss and the piercing, grim pain of life had been theirs. Never a sorrow, never a misfortune, never a brutality in the entire world but that the greater, deeper portion was the woman’s.

So it had been from the beginning, from the nature of things. Creation had given women infinitely greater capacities and ways of suffering than had been given to men. And men, in their strength, in their cruelty and sin, even in the terrible things which they called religion, had ever worked to fill out all the capacities of women for suffering.

All this there was, and more, in the cry which Mary heard, the cry of the daughters of Eve, singing now their joy to the Babe that was born to them.

There was the cry of her own mothers of Israel. She heard them wailing in the land of death, in the baking, steaming mudflats of the Nile, where the wheel turned ever and the whip of the oppressor layover their bending backs. Their tired sighing came out of the long, long years of the desert wandering. Out of Babylon came the wail of those who lived and died in chains. And the nearer generations of her mothers, she heard them crying that age long cry for the One who was to come. Through them He was to come. Now He was come and their cry went up, the fullest, most gladsome voice of all the daughters of earth, glorifying God and this His Son.

And all the desolate ones of earth cried, too, in triumph.

Women who had wept in secret, because their arms might never feel the weight of a child, because God had not listened and had left them unblessed; all these cried out now, with Rachael risen from her tomb, with the women who go down to the burning ghats of the world, cried out with all those whom life had robbed, cried in great, glad voice the cry of those who had been forgotten and were now enriched in God because this Babe lived.

Now deeper than all, swelling through all the earth, came the cry of the common lot. The great, the uncounted majority of all women from the beginning to the end, the women bearing many children, in poverty, in patience and bravery and the face of the chances of life, the voices of these were legion and they filled all the earth. Hardship, the bearing of burdens, the carrying of water, the making of the home fires of the world, these were ever their part, and shall be. In the great, enduring bravery of their kind, they came forward, generation behind generation, filling the lines where hunger and disease and rapacity and war thinned the ranks of the children of men. Nor ever did they murmur, nor ever complained, but counted simply in the great heart of them that this was their business in God’s world. But now they came, many throated, deep voiced, strong in the strength of endurance, crying to the King that was born among the sons of men. And their cry was not for themselves. They were used to give all. To the end they would go on giving all. But to the King they cried, crying for the little ones who had never been set in the sun of life.

They cried of the babes whom poverty, disease and sin had sent crippled into the world. They told of Moloch, the world that in selfishness and suicidal folly had taken their children from their arms and had made them to run before they could walk, and had made them to work before they knew even how to play.

Because the King was nigh, was passing by, they had suddenly found voice, these many of all the earth. Now should they be heard, these women who knew the language of babes. To Him would their cry come, to this King that was born of women.

And Mary knew their voices, all, as they cried to her Son, the King.

She knew the quiver of pain that ran like a wailing minor note through the swelling gladness of their cry. Because she was the Woman, the Woman of the Promise, the cry of all women was the cry of her own soul.

The tears that crested the waves of joy in the voices of these women of earth were her own tears now, breaking in the joy and gladness of her soul.

Their prayers, breathed through the tears and the voices of joy, were her own prayers to the King, her Son.

Let these things no more be! 0 King of Heaven and now King of earth, these be the voices of the daughters of earth. Theirs are the burdens, theirs are the tears, and theirs are the travails of earth. Through them all men live. Through them the earth is peopled and is not a desert waste. Through them, and through them alone, there is beauty, there is goodness, there is grace found on earth.

King, listen unto their many voices.

And in the new found joy of their crying Mary knew that the King listened.

For this was He come into the world. For this was He promised of old to the Woman in the Garden, to make issue with sin and death.

She felt the cry of her own heart in this its great hour merging into the cry of these, the women of earth, the mothers of earth.

Once she had sung in her exaltation, “All generations shall call me blessed.” Now she knew that men through all the ages would write and sing and teach of her. But only these mothers of earth would ever understand. Only these women, who had looked upon a man child and called him king, would know what was in her heart now.

These were her kin, her sisters of the entire world. And with them she cried and prayed and gloried in the King that was come to lead the steps, to heal the wounds, to bathe the souls of the children of the daughters of earth.

The thought was not new to Mary’s mind. How could it have been to a mind that from infancy had been filled with the Law and the traditions of her people and her house? She had read. She had listened. The King was to come. He was to be of the tribe of Juda, and of the house of David. She knew that she was one of those to whom the hope of the people looked. She knew, too, that the great doctors and teachers of the law in Judea, and especially in Jerusalem, would despise any hope that came from outside of Judea. And much more would they look down upon any branch of David’s house that came from outcast Nazareth that sat by the highway in the road markets of the great, defiling world. Maybe she had often been saddened, her deep-hidden maiden hope chilled by this knowledge of what the great and wise ones would surely think of herself and Nazareth.

She knew all these things. The heart of the people had been running high through all these years since she had been listening and thinking. The King might be nigh! Nay, he must be nigh, for the need of the people was very great. They labored. They groaned their need to God. They were crushed under Idumean Herod and his master of Rome. Hearts were breaking under the long long waiting for the fulfillment of the Promise. The King must indeed be nigh. Mary had known all these things.

But Mary was troubled, and a great fear came upon her heart.

What preparation, of reading or of thinking, or even of unwhispered dreams, could really have prepared her mind for the awesome, the overpowering revelation that was now breaking upon it? God had seen to it that her heart and soul were ready, were prepared. But only the years and the keeping of things in her heart could really raise the simple maiden’s mind to a full understanding of all that was now being told her.

And the Angel, seeing her fear, stood near so that the Light which came with him from the Throne fell upon her. And her fear fled away, as she listened to his voice saying:

“Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found favor with God. And, behold thou shalt bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.”

“He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High.”

“And He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end.”

Then Mary, taking a wondering courage from the assurance of the Angel, raised her head to look into his face, breathing her timid question:

“How shall this be?”

And the Angel, understanding the bewilderment of her mind, told her of the Spirit that should come upon her, and of the power of the Most High that should overshadow her, so that He that should be born of her should be called the Son of God.

And as though a human lesson, too, were necessary for her understanding, the Angel told her the secret of her kins-woman Elizabeth who was prepared to become the mother of the Herald of Mary’s Son. “For with God nothing shall be impossible.”

Now Mary understood. The last vestige of doubt, of lingering fear that perhaps this vision of the youth at her side might be an illusion, left her. She knew something now of what lay before her. She knew that childhood had been left behind in these last few moments. She knew that her way was now ahead, marked out for her by the God of her fathers.

Again that shadow of sorrow unutterable fell across her heart. She felt in that moment that her way was to be the way of the mothers of earth, in grief and bitter woe. Out of the untutored wisdom of her heart came to her the truth that this unbounded glory and joy which her God had prepared for her could not be hers without suffering alike unbounded.

From where she knelt her way led straight to the foot of a despised cross! In startled, clear-eyed vision, Mary saw!

The Angel waited, for the word which he should carry back to the Throne.

But there was no hesitation, no conflict, and no struggle in Mary’s heart. For this moment God had formed her.

She saw, she understood, she knew her way up a path of fearsome, incomprehensible joy, with the bleeding sword of sorrow at the end. And she answered:

“Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word.”

Then Mary was alone.

Swifter than the flutter of wing, the Angel was gone from the world and was prostrate at the foot of the Throne. And there at the foot of the Throne was delivered Mary’s answer, the most perfect act of worship the glory of the Most High had seen.

Very early, with the coming of day, Mary had risen to go about her work. The sun coming up over Mount Tabor saw her sitting spinning in the soft, white light of the morning. There was so much to be done. There were not hours enough in the day for the doing of all the things that crowded. The days were so full; the world was so full of hurrying, pressing things.

Those years in the temple, she remembered, had never been like this. There all had been bathed in a wondering, adoring calm such as, it must be, surrounded the Seraphim in Heaven. There had been no worrying hurry; no pressing of moment upon moment: only the whole long days of all the year in which to grow and bless God and live to him.

Here was a bewildering and terrifying world, even in little, forgotten Nazareth. Men said strange things, terrible things, and some men blamed and some men praised. And all men fell to wrangling over the things that were said. At the cross-roads, in the fields, by the village well, in the night watches while the sheep stirred restlessly on the hills, men fought.

There was no peace. Men quarreled and disputed of God and the Law. And knew not that they knew neither God nor the Law. Strange stirrings, strange words, uneasy breathings went working through the land.

It was spring in the land, on the high hills, in the deep valleys. The pulse of spring ran under all. The ancient heart of mother earth could almost be heard, beating in a new, strange, expectant rhythm.

On the face of the earth, in the early morning, before the sun came up over Tabor, there was a hushed wonderment, a waiting, un-breathing moment of expectancy. It was as though earth and heaven stood, all eyes, awaiting the opening of some great drama of God. Mary saw it, felt it, and understood. Just so her own soul stood this morning, in the dawning, waiting, eager, trembling.

She understood more. Just so she knew all true souls in Israel were waiting, eager, hopeful. It might be here, it might be there; in palace or in sheepcote. But surely the Lord was coming!

Three thousand years had been telling of it. Abraham had seen it. David had sung it. Prophet and priest had told of it. The heart of the people had felt it. This morning earth and heaven looked for it. And Mary’s heart waited!

The time was here at hand. Men said it. Earth knew it. And Mary’s heart waited!

Her soul quivered with a premonition, as she stopped the twirling yarn at the hour of the Morning Prayer. For, swift as was the coming of the Angel, it was not possible that news such as he brought could come to earth without sending before it a warning, hushing whisper. The whisper came to Mary as she knelt within, where the sunlight coming in at the single window fell upon her head. And Mary’s heart was ready, waiting!

Wondering, bewildered, as always when she said these words to herself, Mary was repeating that chapter from Isaias in which the real nature of the Redemption of the Promise is set forth. Few people thought of that chapter; for what connection could it have with, what could it have to do with the glorious King who was to come to Israel’s throne?

Surely, she repeated slowly, he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet did we esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

Her head drooped down upon her hands. Over her heart there fell a shadow. What could those words mean, if the King to come was to be as men said and hoped? What could His coming be, what his life, when the great prophet had thus foreseen Him?

The shadow was the shadow of sorrow all unreckoned: of a grief like to which there is no other grief.

She lifted her head and the Angel stood at her side. “Hail, Full of Grace!” The Salutation came to her in the way of words, yet not in the way of words from tongue to ear. They were words from the Throne to the humblest daughter of earth. They told that the Throne had remembered the Woman. But Mary did not understand the words. As though they touched not her ears at all, they passed direct into her soul and held it captive. For years they held her soul captive!

“The Lord is with thee!” These were not words!

They were the Word! The Word that was come to abide. with her!

And Mary did not understand the words. Only the outer sound of them fell upon her ears, as the sound of so many other feeble, uncounted words might so have fallen.

But the Word, which had come on the breath of the words, from the Throne, passed on into Mary’s heart, and lived!

“Blessed art thou among women!”

Now Mary’s soul trembled on the verge of revelation, of understanding. These words could mean but one thing.

Who could be called “blessed among women”?

What Jewish maiden could be called” blessed”? Only one.

Only that daughter of Israel who was chosen to be the mother of the Savior of the race-only she could be called “blessed among women”!

It could mean only one thing, the thing for which every daughter of the house of David had been looking these many years!

A wave of exultation filled the heart of Mary. The young girl no longer wondered and worried about her part in God’s will. She became lyrical and she stood before her aunt, arms outstretched, eyes dimmed and half-closed with tears of joy, and she uttered words which remained engraved on the heart of Elizabeth for all days:

“My soul extols the Lord;

And my spirit leaps for joy in God my savior. How graciously He looked upon this lowly maid! Oh, behold, from this hour onward age after age will call me blessed!

How sublime is what He has done for me the Mighty One, whose name is ‘Holy.’

From age to age He visits those who worship Him in reverence.

His arm achieves the mastery:

He routes the haughty and proud of heart; He puts down princes from their thrones, and exalts the lowly;

He fills the hungry with blessings, and sends away the rich with empty hands. He has taken by the hand His servant Israel, and mercifully kept His faith-as He had promised our fathers with Abraham and his posterity forever and evermore.”

The women embraced and Mary wondered what made her think of those words. The young girl remained with Elizabeth until June, a week prior to the birth of John. Mary was three months pregnant and her parents had sent word that she should be at home preparing for her wedding. Yes, the wedding. Elizabeth now enjoyed Mary’s complete confidence and the two wondered if Joseph knew. It was important that he know what was about to happen, and to understand.

When Mary arrived home, she saw her husband-to-be.

He was not happy that she had chosen to be away from him for three months and, if he knew the secret, he hid it well. He had heard from Mary’s mother that Elizabeth was to bear a child, but surely there were others in her town who could have attended her. The young girl did not dispute Joseph. She decided, from his attitude, that he knew nothing of the great secret. She would not marry: him without telling something of it.

“I’m going to have a baby,” she said. The shock to Joseph was beyond measure. Throughout the courtship, his intended bride had worn an aura of innocence; he was painfully conscious of her lack of knowledge. She had gone away three months ago, and now she returned to say that she was pregnant.

It is impossible to read the depths of sorrow in both hearts. He looked at her tenderly and she offered no word of explanation. She looked away from him and wished that she might tell everything. The baby was going to need a foster father-who better than the man she loved, the gentle and pious and patient Joseph? The thought crossed her mind that he had been selected for the role for these very reasons. He would be an ideal guardian for the infant. Then why, why had he not been told? Why wrench two young hearts with tragedy when the truth was as bright as the sun and as warming?

On the tip of her tongue Mary had the greatest secret of all history. She could not unlock her tongue. Joseph went away from her to think. Of the two, he was the more pitiable. He loved this girl with all his heart and he had had visions of a long and fruitful life with her. Now, he felt, she had betrayed him and he could not understand the betrayal, nor even force himself to believe that it was true.

Joseph kept his awful secret. He could divorce her publicly. If he did this, he would be impelled to tell the elders the reason. In that case, they would ask Mary if she was with child. If she said yes, Joseph would have to swear that he was “without knowledge of her.” The priests would adjudge her to be an adulteress. There was only one penalty for this crime: stoning. The guilty person is led by townsmen to a high cliff and ordered to jump. If the adulteress refuses, she is pushed. As she lies at the bottom of the cliff, the people arm themselves with stones, and watch. If she moves, they throw the stones. If she doesn’t, they go home. The body is left where it is for the birds and the animals.

Joseph was being put to a test. He did not want Mary to die. He loved her. He could, under the law, pay money to put her away, to have her sent to some remote place. There, she could have her baby and remain. A third possibility would be for Joseph to swallow his pride, proceed with the wedding, and hope that there would not be too much comment in the town over a six-month baby.

He was dwelling upon the possibilities one night in bed.

Suddenly, the carpenter made up his mind. He would put Mary away privately. It would break his heart, and he knew that he could not love anyone else, but it would be just and, at the same time, merciful.

Within a few moments after the decision was reached, relaxation came to Joseph, and he slept. In sleep, he was visited by an angel. The spirit said to him “Joseph, son of David, do not scruple to take Mary, your wife, into your home. Her conception was wrought by the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus; for he will save his people from their sins.”

When Joseph awakened, he remembered the dream and he wondered if his forlorn hopes were reaching for rationalization. A dream was nothing more than a dream. His unconscious wishes might be fulfilled in sleep. Still, if this were so, he would never dream a blasphemy in which the pregnancy was excused by attributing it to God. Besides, the dream fulfilled an old prophecy to the letter:

“Behold, the virgin will be pregnant and give birth to a son, who will be called ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God with us.’ ”

Joseph felt refreshed. He felt happy. The more he dwelt upon the dream, the more clearly he saw the hand of God revealing a great truth to him. It required restraint to go to work, making stalls and tables and wooden hangers for utensils and closets for garments. He longed to hurry to Mary’s house, yelling: “I know! I know!” His patience manifested itself, and he waited until the proper time, after supper, and when she saw his first glance, Mary knew that he knew before he took her for an evening walk to explain.

God had tried both of these young people, and they had not failed him. Still, Joseph was worried because he did not understand what part he was to play, nor how best to interpret the will of God. The scripture plainly said that the messiah would be born of a virgin, and Joseph interpreted this to mean that he would have no prerogatives as a husband, now or ever. The following week, they were married and Joseph took Mary to his home. One of his worries, he confided to Mary, was that if the old prophecy of a messiah was to be fulfilled, then something was wrong because everyone knew that the sacred scriptures said that the King of Kings would be born in Bethlehem-the City of David. Their infant would be born in Nazareth, a little place over ninety miles north of Bethlehem.

She had no intention of traveling anywhere, Mary said.

She was going to remain here in Nazareth. In the summer months, and the early autumn, the older women of the town noticed that she was pregnant, and they counseled her to remain close to her home. She would not go to see Elizabeth’s baby, so why would she consider traveling to Bethlehem? Joseph nodded. That was the way he felt. He had never been to Bethlehem and he had no intention of going there.

Gabriel’s voice softened. “Do not tremble, Mary,” he said. “You have found favor in the eyes of God. Behold: you are to be a mother and to bear a son, and to call him Jesus. He will be great: ‘Son of the Most High’ will be his title, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David. He will be king over the house of Jacob forever, and to his kingship there will be no end.”

The words did not calm Mary. Vaguely, she understood that she was to be the mother of a king of kings, but who might this be and how could it occur when she was not even married?

“How will this be,” she said shyly, “since I remain a virgin?”

It was Gabriel’s turn to become specific. He stood in soft radiance in the room and explained. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. For this reason the child to be born will be acclaimed ‘Holy’ and ‘Son of God.’” She now understood the words, but they added to her bewilderment. What the angel was saying, she reasoned, was something for which the Jews had been waiting for centuries: a messiah, a savior, God comes to earth as he had promised long ago. Mary shook her head.

Not to her. Not to her.

Gabriel sensed that the child needed more proof. “Note, moreover,” he said, “your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son and is now in her sixth month-she who was called ‘The barren.’ Nothing indeed is impossible for God.”

Her eyes lowered to the earthen floor, and her head inclined too. She comprehended. She also understood that the angel had told her about her old cousin Elizabeth, whom she had not seen in some time, so that the fruitfulness of her kinswoman would be the earthly seal of proof to the heavenly words. She, a young virgin, was to be blessed by the Holy Spirit and she would bear a male child who would be God. It was an enormous honor, but she had been taught to accept and obey the will of God from the first moments of early understanding.

“Regard me as the humble servant of the Lord,” she murmured. “May all that you have said be fulfilled in me.”

The angel stood before her in silence, fading slowly from her vision, bit by bit, until all that was visible was the wall. Mary’s impulse was to run and find her mother. She must tell. She must ask counsel. She must convince her mother that she was not inventing a story. Exultation came and it was transmuted to anguish. It was not a dream. Or was it? Could one dream, standing wide awake in one’s house?

No, it was not a dream. She knew that it could not be, because she could not have devised the words that Gabriel used. Now, for a moment, she had trouble remembering them. She wrung her hands and prayed for recollection. Full recollection. She had to know every word and, more important, to understand every word. She prayed and thought and prayed and, little by little, the words and phrases returned until, like a familiar litany, she could recite them without hesitation.

She thought again of her mother and decided not to tell. If the angel had wanted her mother to know, he would have come when her mother was at home, so that both of them would have had knowledge of this thing. He had deliberately selected a time when she was alone. Therefore, it must be the will of God that she keep the secret. Anyway, if her mother or anyone else knew the secret, they would tell it to her, and thus she would know which human beings God had selected to know of the honor.

Surely, she thought, Joseph would know. He was her intended husband. The angel would have to tell Joseph. If he didn’t, then what would Joseph think when she became great with child and he knew that the baby was not his? Oh yes, the angel would surely tell Joseph.

Within a few days, Mary asked, as casually as possible, for permission to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Her mother thought of it as a touching sign of devotion, and sent her off with a family traveling south to Judea. The young virgin said nothing about her secret. Some of the time she seemed to her friends to be lost in a frowning reverie.

Elizabeth was gray and wrinkled, and she had spent many years in the balcony of the synagogue asking God for a child. Her husband, Zachary, was a priest, a small town teacher who had once been selected by the great priests of Jerusalem to be the one to enter the holy place and offer the incense. He felt sorrier for his Elizabeth than he did for himself in the matter of childlessness. He understood the natural maternal feelings of Elizabeth and, unknown to her, he had prayed again and again for a child.

Sometime before the visit of Mary, the angel Gabriel had appeared before the old lady and told her that God had answered her prayers. She would give birth to a son in June, and she must call him John. Someday in the distant future he would be called the Baptist, and he would go ahead of the messiah, preaching and baptizing as he went. The angel told Elizabeth more. Much more.

Elizabeth was standing in her doorway as Mary came up the walk. It was as though she had expected the visit. Mary, an affectionate child, shouted a happy greeting before she reached the door. Elizabeth felt her baby move within her and, in raising her hand in greeting, suddenly burst into tears. “Blessed are you,” she said, “beyond all women. And blessed is the fruit of your womb I” Mary stopped, part way to the door. Her mouth hung open. She could not speak. Elizabeth knew 1 Elizabeth knew the secret 1 Elizabeth wiped her eyes and tried to smile. “How privileged am I,” she said to her niece, “to have the mother of my Lord come to visit me. Hear me now: as the sound of your greeting fell upon my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy! Happy is she who believed that what was told her on behalf of the Lord would be fulfilled.”

The last sentence was a quasi-warning for the young girl to erase all doubt from her mind, and become reconciled to the greatest duty of all ages. Mary had not doubted. She had believed the words, but she could not convince herself that she was the one, of all women on earth, selected to bear the Baby. Now she was convinced. She no longer tried to divorce her person from the prophecy. She had told no one of the secret, and here Aunt Elizabeth not only knew about it, but was pregnant exactly as the angel had said she would be.

Mary was born and raised in Nazareth, the child of an average family. She played on the streets, as the other children did, and she was subject to parental discipline. Joseph knew her, even though he was four years older. All houses in Nazareth were in the same neighborhood because it was a small town. The biggest event that could occur in Nazareth was for a father to take his children to the nearby Greek city of Sepphoris to shop in the bazaars. The people were knit closely in their daily lives, and the women met in the morning at the village well.

When Mary reached her thirteenth birthday, it was permissible to ask for her in marriage. The proper form was followed. Joseph first asked his parents if he could marry Mary. He was seventeen, an apprentice carpenter in the neighborhood and more than a year away from having his own shop. It was assumed that a serious-minded young Jew of seventeen was a responsible adult.

Joseph’s parents discussed the matter of marriage and, in time, paid a formal call on Mary’s parents. The entire neighborhood knew in advance what negotiations were at hand, and, from draped doorway to draped doorway, the women discussed it as they washed the stones in front of their houses. Mary was not supposed to know of the matter, but had ex facto knowledge of it all along and had made known her wishes to her mother and father. Joseph, who thought it was a deep, pending secret, was amazed and embarrassed to find that the boss carpenter and the tradesmen were not only aware of his wishes, but looked at him archly, stroked their beards, and made him the butt of unsmiling jests.

The parents engaged in their formal discussion. It was necessary, as part of the little ceremonial, to talk of a dowry, but Mary’s people had none. Their economic status was no better, no worse, than Joseph’s: as long as the man of the house remained in good health, they would not starve.

When the two mothers and two fathers were agreed, the qiddushin took place. This is a formal betrothal, and much more binding than any other. The qiddushin has the finality of marriage. Once the marriage contract was negotiated, even though the marriage ceremony had not occurred, the bridegroom-to-be could not be rid of his betrothed except through divorce. The qiddushin, in Judea, also entitled the couple to lawful sexual relations, even though each of the parties was still living at home with his parents. However, in the country of Galilee and in the south, the people had renounced the privilege more than five hundred years before, and purity was maintained through the final marriage vows.

Still, if Joseph had died between qiddushin and marriage, Mary would have been his legal widow. If, in the same period, another man had had knowledge of her, Mary would have been punished as an adulteress. The waiting time was spent, according to custom, in shopping for a small home and furniture. The nissu’in, or wedding ceremony, would be almost anticlimactic. A big part of the ceremony was the solemn welcome of the bridegroom to his bride at the door of his new home.

Throughout the engagement, Mary, of course, lived with her parents and accepted the daily chores set out for her. At a time midway between engagement and formal marriage, Mary was alone one day and was visited by the angel Gabriel. She was alarmed, to be sure, but not as frightened as she would have been had she not heard stories of such visits from the elders. Mary lived after the days of the great prophets, the great visions, the visitations.

Gabriel stood before her and saw a dark, modest child of fourteen. “Rejoice, child of grace,” he said. “The Lord is your helper. You are blessed beyond all women.” Mary did not like the sound of the last sentence. Her hands began to shake. Why should she, a little country girl, be blessed beyond all women? Did it mean that she was about to die? Was she being taken, perhaps, to a far-off place, never again to see her mother and her father and-and Joseph?

She said nothing. She tried to look away, not only because of terror but because it was considered bad manners in Judea for one to stare directly into the eyes of another, but her eyes was magnetized. She stared, and lowered her eyes, and stared again.