The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ Read Online Free Page B

have slept in many stables and the space beside the manger is always the best. Secure it quickly now for your wife and let no one argue with you about it.”
II
    The child was born about midnight. Through it all, the mother bore her suffering with quiet courage, not once crying out even in the final agony of birth. The baby was well formed and strong, and when Jonas saw the look in the mother’s eyes as she held it close to her body, he felt well repaid for giving up his own space beside the manger to her, even if he got no sleep for the rest of the night.
    There was no heat inside the stable, and with the wind seeping beneath the eaves the temperature had fallen rapidly with the coming of night. Now it was only a little warmer inside than out, and those who had rented space to sleep burrowed into the straw for warmth and cover. Joseph and Mary had not expected the baby to be born so quickly upon their arrival at Bethlehem, they told Jonas, and had not had time to purchase swaddling clothes in which to wrap Him. Few of the other travelers carried more than the clothing they wore on their backs, and even if they had, the rough fabric would have been far too coarse for the tender skin of the newborn babe.
    Mary was trying to warm the child with her own body but, worn out from the ordeal of birth, had little warmth to give it. When Jonas came to look at the babe and receive her thanks for giving up his place, he saw that her teeth were chattering and her lips blue from the cold.
    “We need a blanket to wrap the child in,” Joseph said. “Is there anything in your master’s bales I could buy, Jonas?”
    Elam carried only rich cloth for making fine robes. Jonas knew the carpenter would not be able to afford even the smallest piece and, with the markets of Jerusalem so nearby, there was no point in asking the Pharisee to reduce the price. But there still was a cloth in which the baby could be wrapped, a fabric far softer and warmer than anything the carpenter could buy. Jonas was carrying it, there within his own robe.
    His brief conflict with himself ended when the baby began to cry. As he drew the cloth from his robe and removed the coverings from it, he did not dare feel the smoothness and softness of the fabric with his fingers or look closely at its snowy whiteness lest he weaken and decide to keep it for the temple tomorrow.
    “Wrap the baby in this while I make a place for it in the manger.” Jonas handed the cloth to Joseph. “The wool will keep him warm and we can use the straw to cover your wife.”
    Joseph rubbed the cloth between his fingers. “This is a fine piece—”
    “It was not stolen,” Jonas assured him. “I wove it with my own hands from scraps of wool that had been thrown away.”
    “You could sell it in Jerusalem for a good price, much more than I can pay.”
    “The cloth was to be a gift for the temple, but your child needs it more than the priests. Wrap him in it quickly before the warmth from my body is lost.”
    “Yours is the first gift to the baby,” Mary said gratefully as she wound the soft cloth around the child’s body. “Surely it is the worthiest of all He will ever receive.”
    With the excitement over, the other people in the stable began to settle down for the night. Finding no place to sleep among them as he had assured Joseph he would and thinking to lie down outside with the animals and gain a little warmth from their bodies, Jonas went out into the courtyard.
    At first he thought it must be the light of the full moon that was bathing the inn and the town around it with such a warm glow. Almost blinded by the brilliance, he looked for its source and saw that the light seemed to come from a star hanging low in the sky above the inn, a far more brilliant star than he ever remembered seeing before.
    Instinctively feeling himself in the presence of some power not of earth or man, Jonas dropped to his knees and his lips moved in a prayer he had learned as a child. He did not