Bob MacLafferty

Eleven.

Eleven boys.

Some older. Some younger. Five of them already learning the skill of fishing from their fathers on the Sea of Galilee. Some leaders, some followers, some fighters.

Pushing, pulling, crawling, falling. Fighting, fearing, asking, telling. They stretched and grew, these eleven, somehow already knowing that there were questions they asked without answers, somehow knowing that there was someone they waited and watched for without name.

Every day they listened to their fathers speak of the promised Messiah, the one who would liberate them from the hated Romans. Every day they played and fought, acting out imaginary battles of rebellion. Every day they hoped and prayed for a place in the Messiah’s new kingdom. A place with authority and power, prestige and riches. 

They all heard the ramblings of the old rabbi, older than their father’s fathers. A spirit kingdom, he would rasp. Fighting not for country, but for hearts of men, they would hear him say. Yes, a kingdom, he instructed, but a kingdom within you.

The boys wondered at the sayings of the old man, feeling a strange tugging inside when they heard him speak. Then they would shrug and go back to their fighting, fighting imaginary, but very physical battles, yearning for the day when their play would become real. Only One knew their appointed tasks. Only One knew the battle they would fight. Only one knew the Power that lay within their grasp.

Meanwhile, far away in another world, a million angels vied for a thousand positions. Only the very best were chosen. Angels with years of experience. Angels with great power and tremendous skill. Angels abounding with enthusiasm and passion for this once only event.  Quietly they practiced, carefully they planned, rapidly they flew.

Angels and boys, voices and noise, each with a task and time. Only One knew the time. Only One knew the Son’s time. Only One knew that time had finally come. He had waited for hours and months and centuries to come.

So now, angels and boys and Son. All willing. All waiting. Some had years to wait. Some had only hours.

Nine.

Nine months.

Nine months ago, she experienced the most frightening and the most miraculous night of her life. Mary thought back to that night. It seemed so long ago.  She had experienced so much since. Embarrassment and pride, joy and sorrow, love and selfishness, weakness and strength, faith and fear. The shunning of her friends, the scorn and ridicule of her neighbors, the shock and disappointment of her parents, the disillusionment, then trusting acceptance of her promised Joseph. It seemed a lifetime, nine months. It was the lifetime of her son.

Here she was, trying to rest on a small pallet in the back of a stable cut into the side of a hill. With earth and rock on three sides, top, and bottom, the stable was damp and dark, and only slightly warmer than the exposed part of the building. The damp, woolly smell of the sheep competed with the acrid stench of their excrement to fill her nostrils. The racket of prized male goats butting against stall doors. The squeak of mice and the rush of pigeon wings.  The sight of an unsupervised kid…. goat or child peering around the edge of the next stall. Privacy was nonexistent.

Joseph was gone again. Picking up small jobs, sometimes in his trade, sometimes just unskilled labor. Whatever he could find in order to earn a few coins to keep them fed. Joseph thought she didn’t notice when he slipped most of his food onto her plate, making sure that she and the baby were well nourished. He was so considerate of her needs. As miserable as she was, her one joy was see the love he had for her, shining in his eyes and clear through his every action.

“God of my father’s father,” she breathed,” will your son be born here? Will your son be born tonight? I’ve carried him for nine months. You’ll have to carry him now. Will he be soiled by the filth of the stable as we are fouled by the obscenity of sin? I can’t keep him clean. You’ll have to cleanse him, my God, even as you purify me. Only you can. Only you.”

Seven.

Seven was a special number to the Jews.

Seven, the perfect number.

Jericho’s walls came down after Israel marched around the city seven times on the seventh day. Naaman, the Aramite general, was healed of his leprosy after dipping seven times in the Jordan.

Mary had heard an aging rabbi, shunned as an eccentric, talking to her father late into the night. By the light of a wavering candle flame he had drawn out patterns of sevens with a piece of charcoal on a slab of wood.

Six sevens of generations had passed since Abraham. The seventh seven was about to begin. The long awaited Messiah was due to come.

Every week there was a seven. The Sabbath, a day of worship and rest. Would her baby be born starting a seven of rest like the Sabbath, or healing like Naaman, or destruction and conquest like Jericho?

As she lurched clumsily to her feet, she remembered another seven. Seven months the promised baby had been growing in her. She placed her hands on her swollen belly. She watched it change shape as the baby stretched its limbs.

She felt the thud of a kick as he moved. Was he impatient to come out? Did he anticipate his birth as much as she did?

Did he know? Could he know what he would become, who he was? Did he already know more about his future than she did?

Sevens. Sevens of sevens. The late night words of the old rabbi swirled in confusion in her mind. A seven of peace? A seven of violence and victory? How was she to know?

One thing she was sure of. Her baby would need his strength as no baby ever had before, no matter what his seven might bring.

So this seven was hers, one she knew about. This seventh month was hers to make sure her baby was well nourished and protected. So, while she was on her feet, she swayed and rocked her way to the cooking room, looking for something to stop the aching rumble in her stomach.

Five.
Five fingers.
Five tiny baby fingers.
Would they grow long and sensitive, an artist or musician perhaps? Or would they be hard and calloused, marred by stains and splinter wounds- carpenter’s hands?

The sound of shod horse’s hooves clattering on stone broke into Mary’s revery. A bloodcurdling scream, though quickly stifled, split the air. Mary cringed and looked at the door bolt. Young girls, walking alone, had been snatched by passing Roman soldiers, abused frightfully, then left damaged and bleeding. Sometimes left carelessly at the edge of a camp site, sometimes dropped from a galloping stallion on the edge of town as a warning message.

She had seen men hobbling through town, permanently maimed, having been ridden down by a mounted soldier’s cruelty.

The hated Romans, reminding the Jews of their subjected state in all parts of their lives, even to their virginity. The entire nation, at least what remained of it, groaned and prayed for the coming of the Messiah, the one who would break their shackles of bondage. The one who would turn the tables on the Romans, making slaves of them and returning Israel to its rightful place at the head of all nations.

She remembered the words of the angel visitor in the night,

“The “Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign…” Luke 1;32-33. NIV

Yes, her child would end the reign of tyranny, setting the hated Romans, the Gentiles, running for their lives.

Yes. Her child. Those five tiny fingers would grow to form a mighty fist, a fist holding a sword and delivering them from Roman oppression! The rabbi taught it. Everyone believed it.

And now she was part ot it! Part of the long awaited promise. Generations of teaching made it right. Didn’t it?