A Christmas Story:

By Algi Wijewickrema

From the time he met his friend Phillip who invited him to see the preacher whose popularity was growing in Capernaum, Nathaniel’s curiosity grew and he was restless throughout the day. To his question as to the origins of this preacher, Phillip had said “Nazareth”. Nathaniel had, involuntarily asked “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Though he could not remember Phillip’s response, when he went home, he was unsettled in his mind and when he went to bed that night, sleep eluded him till it was well past midnight.

Nathaniel suddenly woke up and sat on the bed. In the dark he could not see much, not even his wife and son who went to bed beside him. He stretched out his hand to feel if they were there but since he couldn’t, he got out of bed, lit a lamp and walked towards the kitchen.

Sure enough his wife and son were there. His son with the Book of Scripture in his hand and wife seated beside him with a cup of some nourishment. “What are you doing here at this hour?” asked Nathaniel. “We just began the first hour.”. His wife answered “Don’t you remember? Benjamin’s Bar mitzvah is to happen in two weeks’ time. So, he is studying.” Nathaniel nodded his head, smiled and quietly left to get back to bed. His smile was not only in satisfaction of the fact that his son was studying for the Bar mitzvah but also because he remembered his own childhood, how he prepared for the same ceremony thirty-seven years ago and how his mother helped him study.

Though he lay in bed, sleep was nowhere near him. Remembering his mother, he also recalled his father, who moved from Bethlehem to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee. Though he did not remember much of the life in Bethlehem, he knew what happened as his father had never ceased to talk about the life there and about his business of running a guest house.

Recalling his father’s stories, one that he repeated many times and therefore the one story that Nathaniel could not ever forget was about a special night, a night like this he thought, cold, wintry but starlit.

“Son”, old Bartholomew was fond of saying, “I will never forget this night when a couple, a young girl, in an advanced state of pregnancy riding a donkey and her husband, both looking extremely weary from travelling a long distance, called at our inn asking for room to stay. But that was a busy night. With Caesar ordering a census to be carried out for which every chief householder had to register in his town of birth, the inn was already full from people who had come earlier that day. Knowing that they would find no other place to pass that night, all that I could do was to offer them the cattle stable at the back of the inn. The husband, who seemed a serene person, with a grateful voice thanked me and went down the path to the back of the inn where the stable was.”

Nathaniel remembered that it was not all that his father used to say. Bartholomew would, on another occasion, add “You know why I say that it was a special night, it was mid-winter and naturally it was cold but there was starlight and I asked your mother to go to the stable and check if the young pregnant girl needed any help. Sure enough, she was to deliver the baby that night and fortunately, your mother was a midwife.

So she helped deliver the baby and here’s what your mother said, “the baby was the most beautiful baby I have ever helped deliver or ever seen. He was fair of face and so serene and the grace of God seemed to rest on him. After his first cry, the baby peacefully slept. I know there is starlight, but after his birth there seemed to be a special glow about the stable.” In fact, son, your mother’s face was also glowing as if she had seen an angel or God himself. Such was that night.”

Bartholomew would continue, “you were only five years old and so you may not remember any of this, but very early in the next morning, we heard some people tramping down our garden towards the back. Some were carrying lambs upon their shoulders and others walking a sheep or two with them, so we knew they were shepherds. As we missed them when they were going down the path, on their return I asked them what brought them here and they said that an angel of God had announced to them the birth of a King and that they had heard angels sing and they had come to worship the King. Your mother and I didn’t know what to make of those goings on then and still we are unable to understand those happenings.”

Though these thoughts flooded through Nathaniel’s mind while he was recalling his childhood, his father had not explained these happenings in one sitting or a day or two but these were related to him from time to time whenever his father was in the mood and he was there to listen.

Still lying on bed, with no warning, his thoughts shifted to the day before when his friend Phillip had suggested that they go to see the preacher who had been preaching in Capernaum. His friend Phillip, of late, seemed impressed with this preacher as it seemed to be with many in the area. Phillip even went as far as to say that he was not a preacher or prophet but someone higher than that. However, Nathaniel was not sure.

Although he could not think of a reason to connect the incidents of long ago that his father used to narrate to him and this preacher, his in his mind he wondered if this preacher could be the baby born on that special morn, Nathaniel’s curiosity got the better of him and he decided that he must go and see this preacher with Phillip.