Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

Chapter 2

That night, after supper, while the men were dozing on their mats in the courtyard, Philo came.

He sat down to a cup of wine with Joseph, just as if he wasn’t wearing white linen and wouldn’t be soiled, and crossed his legs like the other men. I sat beside Joseph, hoping to hear all that was said, but then my mother took me inside.

She listened behind the curtain and she let me listen. Aunt Salome and Aunt Esther were there too.

Philo wanted to keep me and instruct me and send me back to Joseph an educated young man. Joseph listened to all this in silence but said no. Joseph was my father and Joseph must take me back to Nazareth. He knew that this was what he had to do. He thanked Philo, and offered him wine again, and said that he would see to it that I was educated as a Jew.

“You forget, my lord,” he said in his gentle ma

Philo was pleased at that and nodded and smiled.

“He’ll go to school in the mornings, as all the boys do,” Joseph went on. “And we will have our disputes over the Law and the Prophets. And we’ll go up to Jerusalem and there at the Feasts, maybe he’ll listen to the teachers in the Temple. I have many a time.”

When Philo offered a gift for my education, a little purse that he wanted to put into Joseph’s hand, Joseph said no.

Philo took his ease awhile, and he talked of many things with Joseph, of the city and of the jobs our men had done, and of the Empire, and then he asked Joseph how Joseph was so certain that King Herod was dead.

“The news will reach here soon with the Roman post,” Joseph said. “As for me, I knew it in a dream, my lord. And it means for us we will go home.”

My uncles who had sat quietly all this time in the dark came in with their agreement, and how much they had despised the King.

The strange words of the Teacher, his talk of murderous rampages, were in my mind, but the men never spoke of that, and finally it came time for Philo to go.

He didn’t even dust off his fine linen as he stood up, and he thanked Joseph over and over for the good wine, and wished us well.

I ran out. I walked a way with Philo up the street. He had two slaves with him who carried torches and I’d never seen the Street of the Carpenters so brightly lighted at this hour, and I knew people were watching from the courtyards where they took their ease in the breeze from the sea that came with the dark.

Philo told me to always remember Egypt and the map of the Empire which he had shown me.

“But why don’t all the Jews go back to Israel?” I asked him. “If we are Jews, shouldn’t we live in the land the Lord gave to us? I don’t understand.”

He thought for a moment. Then he said, “A Jew can live anywhere and be a Jew. We have the Torah, the Prophets, the Tradition. We live as Jews wherever we are. And don’t we take the Word of the One True Lord wherever we go? Don’t we establish his Word among the pagans wherever we live? I live here because my father lived here and his father before him. You go home because your father wants you to go home.”

My father.

A chill passed over me. Joseph was not my father. I had always known this, but it wasn’t something to be said to anyone, ever. And I didn’t say anything about it now.

I nodded.

“Remember me,” Philo said.

I kissed his hands, and he bent down and kissed me on both cheeks.

He was going home to a fine supper perhaps, in his house of marble floors and lamps everywhere, and rich curtains, and the upper rooms open to the sea.

He turned back once to wave to me and then he and his servants with their torches were gone.

I felt sad for a moment, just a moment, enough never to forget it, this stabbing sadness. But I was too excited to be returning to the Holy Land.

And I hurried back home.

In the darkness, I came up quietly on the courtyard, and I heard my mother crying. She sat next to Joseph.

“But I don’t know why we can’t settle in Bethlehem,” she was saying. “It seems we were meant to return there.”

Bethlehem, where I was born.

“Never,” said Joseph. “We can’t even consider such a thing.” He was kind as always with her. “How could you think this, that we could ever go back to Bethlehem?”

“But I’ve been hoping all this time,” my mother pressed. “It’s been seven years, and people forget, if they ever understood…”

My uncle Cleopas who lay flat on his back with his knees crooked was laughing softly, the way he laughed at so many things. My uncle Alphaeus said nothing. He appeared to be looking up at the stars. I could see James in the doorway watching, and listening too perhaps.

“Think of all the signs,” said my mother. “Think of the night when the men from the East came. Why, that alone—.”

“That’s just it,” said Joseph who sat beside her. “Do you think anybody there has forgotten that? Do you think they’ve forgotten anything? We can never go there.”

Cleopas laughed again.

Joseph paid no mind to Cleopas and neither did my mother. Joseph put his arm around my mother.

“They’ll remember the star,” said Joseph, “the shepherds coming in from the hills. They’ll remember the men from the East. Above all, they’ll remember the night that—.”

“Don’t say it, please,” said my mother. She put her hands to her ears. “Please don’t say those words.”

“Don’t you see, we must take him and go to Nazareth. We have no choice. Besides…”

“What star? What men from the East?” I asked. I couldn’t hold back anymore. “What happened?”

Again, my uncle Cleopas laughed under his breath.

My mother looked up at me. She hadn’t known I was there. “You mustn’t worry about it,” she said.

“But what happened in Bethlehem?” I asked.

Joseph was looking at me.

“Our house is in Nazareth,” said my mother to me. Her voice was stronger. It was a voice for me. “You have more cousins than you can count in Nazareth. Old Sarah’s waiting for us, and Old Justus. These are our kindred in common. We’re returning to our house.” She stood up and beckoned for me to come.

“Yes,” said Joseph. “We’ll leave as soon as we can. It will take us a few days, but we’ll be in time for Passover in Jerusalem and then go on home.”

My mother took me by the hand and started to lead me inside.

“But who were the men from the East, Mamma?” I asked. “Can’t you tell me?”

My uncle would not stop his soft laughing.

Even in the dark, I could see the strange expression on Joseph’s face.

“Some night, I’ll tell you all of it,” said my mother. Her tears were gone. She was strong for me as always, not the child she was with Joseph. “You mustn’t ask me these things now. Not now. I’ll tell when the time comes.”

“This is true,” said Joseph. “I don’t want you to ask, do you understand?”

They were gentle, but these were clear and strange words. All the words they’d spoken were strange.

I should have let them go on talking. I would have learned more. And I knew it was a great secret, this that they talked about. How could it not be? And as for me hearing it, they knew they’d made a mistake.

I didn’t want to sleep. I lay on my blanket trying to sleep, but sleep didn’t come and I didn’t want it. I never wanted it. But now my thoughts were racing. We were going home, and I had so much to think about because so much had happened, and now they were saying these strange things.

And what had happened today? What had happened with Eleazer and what had happened with him, that, and the memory of the sparrows insofar as I could remember it—these were like bright shapes in my mind for which I didn’t have words. I’d never felt anything before like the power that had come out of me just before Eleazer fell dead in the dust, or the power that had come out of me just before he’d risen from the mat. Son of David, Son of David, Son of David…