The Other Wise Man
Stories
Contents
“The Other Wise Man” by David O. Bales
“Enveloped Into Jesus’ Life” by David O. Bales
The Other Wise Man
by David O. Bales
Matthew 25:31-46
For 125 years Christians have heard in some form Henry Van Dyke’s The Other Wise Man. Here follows a condensation, slightly rewritten for our time. May it bless and inspire you as it has thousands before you.
* * *
You know the story of the Three Wise Men of the East and how they traveled from afar to offer their gifts at the manger-cradle in Bethlehem. But have you heard of Artaban, the other wise man who also saw the star in its rising and set out to follow it yet did not arrive with his brethren in the presence of the child Jesus? I would tell the tale as I have heard fragments of it in the hall of dreams, in the palace of the heart of man.
I
In the days when Augustus Caesar was master of many kings and Herod reigned in Jerusalem, Artaban lived in the city of Ecbatana, among the masses of Persia. He wore a robe of pure white wool, thrown over a tunic of silk and a white, pointed cap with long lapels at the sides. A winged circle of gold rested on his breast. It was the dress of the priesthood of the Magi, called the fire-worshippers, the worshippers of the God of purity. Along with his fellow priests of Zoroaster, he studied the stars as well as the Hebrew scriptures. Those Magi believed they had found a prophecy in the Hebrew scriptures that would lead them to the Jews’ promised Messiah. It was the ancient word of Balaam the son of Beor who announced: “A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.”
Artaban explained to his father that he and his three Magi companions—Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar—had searched the ancient tablets of the Chaldeans and computed the time of the stars. They decided that the star announcing the Messiah’s birth would occur this year. “We have studied the sky, and in the spring of the year we saw two of the greatest planets draw near together, in the sign of the fish, which is the house of the Hebrews. We also saw a new star. Now again the two great planets are meeting. This night is their conjunction. My three brothers are watching by the Temple of the Seven Spheres at Bosippa in Babylonia, and I am watching here. If the star shines again, they will wait ten days for me at the temple, and then we will set out together for Jerusalem to see and worship the promised one who shall be born King of Israel.
To prepare for the journey, Artaban had sold all his possessions and purchased three jewels—a sapphire, a ruby, and a pearl—to carry as a tribute to the king. He placed the jewels in the tight band of cloth next to his body, then later that night climbed to his roof to watch the stars, as he knew his three friends also searched the sky 450 miles away.
As Artaban watched, a steel-blue spark was born out of the darkness beneath, rounding itself with purple splendors to a crimson sphere, and spiring upward through rays of saffron and orange into a point of white radiance. Tiny and infinitely remote, yet perfect in every part, it pulsated in the enormous vault as if the three jewels hidden in the Magian’s clothes had mingled and been transformed into a living heart of light.
He bowed his head. He covered his brow with his hands.
“It is the sign,” he said. “The king is coming, and I will go to meet him.”
II
He set out on his strongest horse, Vasda. Artaban must ride wisely and well if he would keep the appointed hour with the other Magi; for the route was 450 miles and 50 was near the limit of what Vasda could cover in a day. Ten days. His fellow Magians would wait until midnight of the tenth day, and, if he did not appear, they would leave without him on the caravan to Judea.
On the evening of the tenth day, Artaban approached the shattered walls of Babylon. Vasda was almost spent and Artaban would gladly have turned into the city he was nearing to find rest and refreshment for himself and for her. Yet it was still three hours journey to the Temple of the Seven Spheres, and he must reach the place by midnight if he would find his comrades waiting with supplies to carry them to Judea.
A grove of date-palms made an island of gloom in the pale-yellow sea. As she passed into the shadow, Vasda slackened her pace and began to pick her way more carefully. Near the further end of the darkness she gave a quick breath of anxiety and stood stock-still, quivering in every muscle before a dark object in the shadow of the last palm-tree.
Artaban dismounted. The dim starlight revealed the form of a man lying across the road. His humble dress and the outline of his haggard face showed that he was probably one of the Hebrews who, having been exiled here by the Babylonian armies 500 years before, still dwelt in great numbers around the city. His skin, dry and yellow as parchment bore the mark of the deadly fever which ravaged marshlands in autumn. The chill of death was in his lean hand, and, as Artaban released it, the arm fell back inertly upon the motionless breast.
But as he turned away, a long, faint, ghostly sigh came from the man’s lips and his boney fingers gripped the hem of the Magian’s robe and held him fast. Artaban’s heart leaped to his throat, not with fear but with a dumb resentment of this blind delay. How could he stay here in the darkness to minister to a dying stranger? What claim had this unknown fragment of human life upon his compassion or his service? If he lingered but an hour, he could hardly reach Borsippa at the appointed time. His companions would go without him.
But if he went now, the man would surely die. “God of truth and purity,” he prayed, “direct me in the holy path, the way of wisdom which you only know.”
He turned back to the sick man. Loosening the grasp of his hand, he carried him to a little mound at the foot of the palm-tree. He brought water from the canal and mixed it with healing herbs which Magians always carried. Slowly, hour by hour, he labored to revive the old man.
Finally, the man’s eyes opened, and he asked, “Who are you and why have you sought me here to bring back my life?”
“I am Artaban the Magian, of the city of Ecbatana, and I am going to Jerusalem in search of the one who is to be born king of the Jews, a great prince and deliverer of all men. I must not delay longer, for the caravan that has waited for me may depart without me. Here is all I have left of my bread and wine, and a portion of the healing herbs. Now I must go.”
The Jew raised his trembling hand solemnly to the heavens and blessed Artaban, then said, “But not Jerusalem. The Messiah must not be sought there. Our prophets say Bethlehem is the place.”
It was already long past midnight. Artaban rode in haste, and Vasda, restored by the brief rest, ran eagerly through the silent plain and swam the channels of the river. At the first beams of dawn, they drew near the mound of Nimrod and the Temple of the Seven Spheres, yet with no sign of his friends.
At the edge of the terrace he saw a little cairn of broken bricks, and under them a piece of papyrus. He caught it up and read: “We have waited past midnight and can delay no longer. We go to find the king. Follow us across the desert.”
Artaban sat down on the ground and covered his head in despair. “How can I cross the desert,” he said, “with no food and with a spent horse? I must return to Babylon, sell my sapphire, and buy a train of camels and provisions for the journey.”
III
There was a silence in the hall of dreams where I was listening to the story of the other Wise Man. Through this silence I saw, but very dimly, his figure passing over the dreary desert, high upon the back of his camel, rocking steadily onward like a ship over the waves.
Through his journeying, I followed Artaban moving steadily onward, until he arrived at Bethlehem. It was the third day after the three Wise Men had come and had found Mary and Joseph with the young child Jesus and had laid their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh at his feet.
Then the other Wise Man drew near, weary, but full of hope, bearing his ruby and his pearl to offer to the king. Yet the streets of the village seem deserted and Artaban wondered whether the men had gone to the hill pastures to bring down the sheep. From the open door of a cottage he heard the sound of a woman’s voice singing softly. He entered and found a young mother hushing her baby to rest. She told him of the strangers from the far east who had appeared in the village three days before and how they said that a star had guided them to the place where Joseph of Nazareth was lodging with his wife and her new born child, and how they had paid reverence to the child and given him rich gifts.
“But the travelers disappeared again,” she continued, “as suddenly as they had come. We were afraid at the strangeness of their visit. The man of Nazareth took the child and his mother and fled that same night secretly, and it was whispered they were going to Egypt. Since then a spell has been upon the village; something evil hangs over it. They say Roman soldiers are coming to force a new tax from us, and the men have driven the flocks and herds far back among the hills and hidden themselves to escape it.”
Artaban listened to her gentle, timid speech and the child in her arms looked up in his face and smiled, stretching out his rosy hands to grasp the winged circle of gold on his breast. His heart warmed to the touch. “Why might not this child have been the promised prince?” he asked within himself, as he touched its soft cheek. “Kings have been born before this in lowlier houses.”
The young mother laid the baby in its cradle and rose to minister to the needs of the strange guest. She set food before him, the plain fare of peasants, willingly offered. Suddenly the noise of wild confusion rose in the streets, a shrieking and wailing of women’s voices, a clangor of brazen trumpets, a clashing of swords and a desperate cry: “The soldiers! Herod’s soldiers are killing our children.”
The mother’s face grew white. She clasped her child to her bosom and crouched motionless in the darkest corner of the room, covering him with the folds of her robe lest he should wake and cry.
Artaban went quickly and stood in the doorway of the house. His broad shoulders filled the portal from side to side and the peak of his white cap all but touched the lintel.
Soldiers hurried down the street with bloody hands and dripping swords. At the sight of the stranger in his imposing dress they hesitated with surprise. The captain of the band approached the threshold to thrust him aside. But Artaban did not stir.
“I am all alone in this place,” he said, “and am waiting to give this jewel to the prudent captain who will leave me in peace.”
He showed the ruby, glistening in the hollow of his hand like a great drop of blood. The pupils of the captain’s eyes expanded with desire, and the hard lines of greed wrinkled around his lips. He stretched out his hand and took the ruby.
“March on!” he cried to his men. “There is no child here.”
Artaban reentered the cottage and prayed: “God of truth, forgive my sin! I have lied to save the life of a child. And two of my gifts are gone. I have spent for man what was meant for God.”
But the voice of the young woman, weeping for joy in the shadow behind him said gently, “Because you have saved the life of my little one, may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace.”
IV
Again, there was a silence in the hall of dreams, deeper and more mysterious than the first interval and I understood that the years of Artaban were flowing very swiftly under the stillness.
I saw him moving among the throngs of men in populous Egypt, seeking everywhere for traces of the household that had come from Bethlehem. I saw him again in an obscure house of Alexandria, taking counsel with a Hebrew rabbi. The venerable man, bending over the rolls of parchment on which the prophecies of Israel were written, read aloud the pathetic words which foretold the sufferings of the promised Messiah—despised, rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
“And remember, my son,” he said, fixing his eyes on Artaban’s face, “the king whom you seek is not to be found in a palace nor among the rich and powerful. The light for which the world is waiting is a new light, glory that shall rise out of patient and triumphant suffering. And the kingdom which is to be established forever is a new kingdom, the royalty of unconquerable love. Those who seek him will do well to look among the poor and the lowly, the sorrowful and the oppressed.”
So, I saw the other Wise Man again and again, traveling from place to place, and searching among the people of the dispersion. He passed through countries where famine lay heavy on the land and the poor were crying for bread. He visited the oppressed and the afflicted in the gloom of subterranean prisons and the crowded wretchedness of slave-markets and the weary toil of galley-ships. In all this populous and intricate world of anguish, though he found none to worship, he found many to help. He fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and healed the sick, and comforted the captive; and his years passed more swiftly than the weaver’s shuttle that flashes back and forth through the loom while the web grows and the pattern is completed.
Then, at last, while I was thinking of his final gem, the pearl, I heard the end of the story of the other Wise Man.
V
Thirty-and-three years of Artaban’s life had passed away. Worn and weary and ready to die, but still looking for the king, he had come for the last time to Jerusalem. He had often visited the holy city before, but now it seemed as if he must make one more effort, and something whispered in his heart that, at last, he might succeed.
It was the season of Passover. The city was thronged with strangers. On this day, a singular agitation was visible in the multitude. The sky was veiled with portentous gloom. Currents of excitement seemed to flash through the crowd.
Artaban joined a group of people from his own country, Parthian Jews who had come up to Jerusalem to keep the Passover, and he inquired of them the cause of the tumult and where they were going.
“We are going,” they answered, “to the place called Golgotha, outside the city walls, where there is to be an execution. Two famous robbers are to be crucified, and with them another, called Jesus of Nazareth, a man who has done many wonderful works among the people, so that they love him greatly. Though the priests and elders have said that he must die because he gave himself out to be the Son of God. Pilate has sent him to the cross because he said that he was the ‘King of the Jews.’”
How strangely these familiar words fell onto the tired heart of Artaban. The King of the Jews. These words had led him for a lifetime over land and sea. Could it be the same who had been born in Bethlehem thirty-three years ago, at whose birth the star had appeared in the heavens, and of whose coming the prophets had spoken?
He said within himself: “The ways of God are stranger than the thoughts of men, and it may be that I shall find the king at last in the hands of his enemies and shall come in time to offer my pearl for his ransom before he dies.”
So, the old man followed the multitude with slow and painful steps. Just beyond the entrance of the guardhouse, a troop of Macedonian soldiers came down the street, dragging a young girl with torn dress and disheveled hair. She broke suddenly from her tormentors’ hands and threw herself at his feet clasping him around the knees. She had seen his white hat and the winged circle on his breast.
“Have pity on me,” she cried, “and save me. I also am a daughter of the true religion which is taught by the Magi. My father was a merchant of Parthia, but he is dead, and I am seized for his debts to be sold as a slave.”
Artaban trembled.
It was the old conflict in his soul, which had come to him in the palm-grove of Babylon and in the cottage at Bethlehem—the conflict between the expectation of faith and impulse of love. Twice the gift which he had consecrated to the worship of religion had been drawn to the service of humanity. This was the third trial, the final and irrevocable choice.
Was it his great opportunity, or his last temptation?
He took the pearl from his garment. Never had it seemed so luminous, so radiant so full of tender, living luster. He laid it in the slave’s hand.
“This is your ransom, daughter. It is the last of my treasures which I kept for the king.”
While he spoke, the sky darkened, and shuddering tremors ran through the earth heaving convulsively like the breast of one who struggles with mighty grief.
The walls of the houses rocked to and fro. Stones were loosened and crashed into the street. The soldiers took the pearl and fled in terror, reeling like drunken men. But Artaban and the girl whom he had ransomed crouched helpless beside the wall of the governor’s palace.
What had he to fear? What had he to hope? The quest was over, and it had failed. But, even in that thought, accepted, and embraced, there was peace. He knew that all was well because he had done the best that he could. He had been true to the light that had been given to him. He knew that even if he could live his earthly life over, it could not be otherwise than it had been.
One lingering pulsation of the earthquake quivered through the ground. A heavy tile, shaken from the roof, fell and struck the old man on his temple. He lay breathless and pale, with his gray head resting on the young girl’s shoulder and blood trickling from the wound. As she bent over him, fearing that he was dead, there came a voice through the twilight, very small and still, like music sounding from a distance, in which the notes are clear but the words are lost. The girl turned to see if someone had spoken from the window above them, but she saw no one.
The old man’s lips began to move, as if in answer, and she heard him say in the Parthian tongue.
“Not so, my Lord! When was it that I saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that I saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that I saw you sick or in prison and visited you? Three-and-thirty years have I looked for you; but I have never seen your face nor ministered to you, my king.”
He ceased, and the sweet voice came again. And again, the girl heard it, very faint and far away. But now it seemed as though she understood the words:
“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
A calm radiance of wonder and joy lighted the pale face of Artaban like the first ray of dawn on a snowy mountain peak. A long breath of relief exhaled gently from his lips.
His journey was ended. His treasures were accepted. The other Wise Man had found the king.
Preaching point: Does anyone really need guidance in understanding this story?
* * *
Enveloped Into Jesus’ Life
by David O. Bales
Ephesians 1:15-23
“Jesus’ view of life is okay, mostly … inspiring; but I don’t go much for his church.” Haley said. She had small, close together dark eyes, set so deep she appeared to be looking out of two small tunnels.
“The Buddha states all life is suffering,” Lyle said. His blue eyes protruded almost like a fly, and he spoke as casually as if his statement was a response in an evening long conversation among old friends. It wasn’t.
The subject of the conversation had slipped up on Clare. Her anxiety distracted her, and she wasn’t attentive to the two who’d been parked with her in this less than comfortable waiting area. She suddenly realized that her two fellow PhD candidates were speaking seriously. She wondered: “How did we get to this?” Three graduate students in philosophy, strangers and thrown together, seldom speak of faith, unless one plans to spring religion like a trap on every new acquaintance. Some dimwit, however, had plopped these three to await the committee’s decision to which of them the fellowship would be granted. Their lives hung on what an apologetic messenger would announce to them; yet, after five minutes of fidgeting together, Haley and Lyle were taking off on faith, their faith.
“I do my yoga everyday,” Haley said. “Although I admit that sometimes,” she giggled, shaking her head at her own contradiction, “I’m thinking about Kant or Wittgenstein … and reviewing for class discussion.”
“Sounds more western than eastern,” Lyle laughed and turned his blue eyes to Clare as though it were her turn to acknowledge some philosophical or religious stance toward life. She gave a small clearing of the throat (how did this conversation come about?) and said, “Thomism, basically, kind of at the crossroads of philosophy and theology.”
“Mmm,” Haley said, slurring the word into a statement and a question.
“Go on. Go on,” Lyle said, rolling his hand in front of Clare, his eyes seemed even more open as he urged her to continue.
Really, what was happening here? Come to apply for a PhD program and her two competitors seem like her allies, students like her who are interested in life and thus, very interesting people.
“It’s a long story,” she said, looking down, then glancing hopefully towards the hall that led to the professors’ conference room.
“Yes?” Haley said, her tiny dark eyes awaiting Clare’s statement of personal truth.
“I went to Austria for my senior year.”
Haley and Lyle nodded for her to continue.
“That’s where I got into philosophy. Germans can really string together the philosophical words.”
Lyle and Haley laughed. Haley said, “The Greeks compounded some pretty lengthy words too.”
“I met an Austrian philosophy student, Nela, and we became very close. She already had her masters. She’s where I learned everything important about Austria’s German side of history and culture. She loved to tell me anything I asked. Had the kind of a memory that retained everything she’d ever seen, heard or read.”
“Like Professor Pilsen,” Lyle said. “Amazing that people have such brains.”
“Nela was Christian. We hadn’t been friends long when she told me about the passion play at Oberammergau. She flittered the ditty off her tongue about Unterammergau and Oberammergau forwards and then backwards. That was a year ago. She insisted we go to the play because here I was in Austria in 2010—it’s only performed every ten years. I should go.
“I didn’t know much about the Bible, and some of the play about the Old Testament was lost on me. But, all those scenes of Jesus’ last week portrayed with the pomp, music and the flood of costumes. Hour after hour. My German was good by then. Didn’t miss much. I was taken in, taken up, enveloped, embraced. Nothing like a philosophy lecture.”
She looked quizzically at her companions, not wishing to offend them. They waited with their friendly, intelligent faces. She leaned forward to confide with them, “It’s like in those few hours I was told barely enough about God and Christ, yet it included me. I realized that day, although I couldn’t put it in words, that no matter what else happened, this would shape my life.”
Clare paused and took a breath. Lyle and Haley were genuinely involved in her story. She was flooded with affection for them. At the same moment, the thought flicked through her mind that only one of them would be granted the graduate position. It included a teaching assistantship with a stipend large enough actually to live on.
“I told Nela about it. ‘It can happen,’ she said. ‘Straight from the stage to your heart,’ and she started talking about Hitler. I thought, ‘What’s this got to do with Oberammergau and what’s just happened to me?’ We Americans had been instructed to be courteous about Hitler and Nazism. Only mentioned it if someone else brought up the subject. But Nela could explain whatever I wanted to know and in this case what I didn’t even ask. She plunged right in. ‘Hitler came to Oberammergau to the special performance in 1934—the 300-year anniversary. But this wasn’t the performance that changed him. He had an experience like yours when he was 16. He and a friend attended Wagner’s opera Rienzi. He was enraptured. He felt himself encircled and included in the plot. He said at the moment he’d been given his destiny to lead his people out of servitude. Well, the world knows what he dragged it into.’”
Clare was relaxed now. She leaned back. “Nela with her Christian heart put her hand on my shoulder and said, ‘God created us to serve a grand cause. Depends which one we surrender to. If you’ve experienced being enraptured, folded into Jesus’ story, it means you’ll now be formed by our Lord Jesus.’
“My thinking was like all ten bowling pins tipped over at once … before the bowling ball got to them. Mental chaos. I had six weeks before end of term to scramble around and question profs and fellow students and read philosophy and theology all night, and, of course, write papers. I came back from Europe determined to live for Christ. That’s about all I know, the minimum understanding of Christianity. Certainly don’t know where I’m going next.” She spread her hands to her companions and asked, “Know what I mean?”
Haley opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment the three saw a professor step from the conference room and walk towards them.
Preaching point: The eyes of the heart enlightened.
*****************************************
StoryShare, November 22, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
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“The Other Wise Man” by David O. Bales
“Enveloped Into Jesus’ Life” by David O. Bales
The Other Wise Man
by David O. Bales
Matthew 25:31-46
For 125 years Christians have heard in some form Henry Van Dyke’s The Other Wise Man. Here follows a condensation, slightly rewritten for our time. May it bless and inspire you as it has thousands before you.
* * *
You know the story of the Three Wise Men of the East and how they traveled from afar to offer their gifts at the manger-cradle in Bethlehem. But have you heard of Artaban, the other wise man who also saw the star in its rising and set out to follow it yet did not arrive with his brethren in the presence of the child Jesus? I would tell the tale as I have heard fragments of it in the hall of dreams, in the palace of the heart of man.
I
In the days when Augustus Caesar was master of many kings and Herod reigned in Jerusalem, Artaban lived in the city of Ecbatana, among the masses of Persia. He wore a robe of pure white wool, thrown over a tunic of silk and a white, pointed cap with long lapels at the sides. A winged circle of gold rested on his breast. It was the dress of the priesthood of the Magi, called the fire-worshippers, the worshippers of the God of purity. Along with his fellow priests of Zoroaster, he studied the stars as well as the Hebrew scriptures. Those Magi believed they had found a prophecy in the Hebrew scriptures that would lead them to the Jews’ promised Messiah. It was the ancient word of Balaam the son of Beor who announced: “A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.”
Artaban explained to his father that he and his three Magi companions—Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar—had searched the ancient tablets of the Chaldeans and computed the time of the stars. They decided that the star announcing the Messiah’s birth would occur this year. “We have studied the sky, and in the spring of the year we saw two of the greatest planets draw near together, in the sign of the fish, which is the house of the Hebrews. We also saw a new star. Now again the two great planets are meeting. This night is their conjunction. My three brothers are watching by the Temple of the Seven Spheres at Bosippa in Babylonia, and I am watching here. If the star shines again, they will wait ten days for me at the temple, and then we will set out together for Jerusalem to see and worship the promised one who shall be born King of Israel.
To prepare for the journey, Artaban had sold all his possessions and purchased three jewels—a sapphire, a ruby, and a pearl—to carry as a tribute to the king. He placed the jewels in the tight band of cloth next to his body, then later that night climbed to his roof to watch the stars, as he knew his three friends also searched the sky 450 miles away.
As Artaban watched, a steel-blue spark was born out of the darkness beneath, rounding itself with purple splendors to a crimson sphere, and spiring upward through rays of saffron and orange into a point of white radiance. Tiny and infinitely remote, yet perfect in every part, it pulsated in the enormous vault as if the three jewels hidden in the Magian’s clothes had mingled and been transformed into a living heart of light.
He bowed his head. He covered his brow with his hands.
“It is the sign,” he said. “The king is coming, and I will go to meet him.”
II
He set out on his strongest horse, Vasda. Artaban must ride wisely and well if he would keep the appointed hour with the other Magi; for the route was 450 miles and 50 was near the limit of what Vasda could cover in a day. Ten days. His fellow Magians would wait until midnight of the tenth day, and, if he did not appear, they would leave without him on the caravan to Judea.
On the evening of the tenth day, Artaban approached the shattered walls of Babylon. Vasda was almost spent and Artaban would gladly have turned into the city he was nearing to find rest and refreshment for himself and for her. Yet it was still three hours journey to the Temple of the Seven Spheres, and he must reach the place by midnight if he would find his comrades waiting with supplies to carry them to Judea.
A grove of date-palms made an island of gloom in the pale-yellow sea. As she passed into the shadow, Vasda slackened her pace and began to pick her way more carefully. Near the further end of the darkness she gave a quick breath of anxiety and stood stock-still, quivering in every muscle before a dark object in the shadow of the last palm-tree.
Artaban dismounted. The dim starlight revealed the form of a man lying across the road. His humble dress and the outline of his haggard face showed that he was probably one of the Hebrews who, having been exiled here by the Babylonian armies 500 years before, still dwelt in great numbers around the city. His skin, dry and yellow as parchment bore the mark of the deadly fever which ravaged marshlands in autumn. The chill of death was in his lean hand, and, as Artaban released it, the arm fell back inertly upon the motionless breast.
But as he turned away, a long, faint, ghostly sigh came from the man’s lips and his boney fingers gripped the hem of the Magian’s robe and held him fast. Artaban’s heart leaped to his throat, not with fear but with a dumb resentment of this blind delay. How could he stay here in the darkness to minister to a dying stranger? What claim had this unknown fragment of human life upon his compassion or his service? If he lingered but an hour, he could hardly reach Borsippa at the appointed time. His companions would go without him.
But if he went now, the man would surely die. “God of truth and purity,” he prayed, “direct me in the holy path, the way of wisdom which you only know.”
He turned back to the sick man. Loosening the grasp of his hand, he carried him to a little mound at the foot of the palm-tree. He brought water from the canal and mixed it with healing herbs which Magians always carried. Slowly, hour by hour, he labored to revive the old man.
Finally, the man’s eyes opened, and he asked, “Who are you and why have you sought me here to bring back my life?”
“I am Artaban the Magian, of the city of Ecbatana, and I am going to Jerusalem in search of the one who is to be born king of the Jews, a great prince and deliverer of all men. I must not delay longer, for the caravan that has waited for me may depart without me. Here is all I have left of my bread and wine, and a portion of the healing herbs. Now I must go.”
The Jew raised his trembling hand solemnly to the heavens and blessed Artaban, then said, “But not Jerusalem. The Messiah must not be sought there. Our prophets say Bethlehem is the place.”
It was already long past midnight. Artaban rode in haste, and Vasda, restored by the brief rest, ran eagerly through the silent plain and swam the channels of the river. At the first beams of dawn, they drew near the mound of Nimrod and the Temple of the Seven Spheres, yet with no sign of his friends.
At the edge of the terrace he saw a little cairn of broken bricks, and under them a piece of papyrus. He caught it up and read: “We have waited past midnight and can delay no longer. We go to find the king. Follow us across the desert.”
Artaban sat down on the ground and covered his head in despair. “How can I cross the desert,” he said, “with no food and with a spent horse? I must return to Babylon, sell my sapphire, and buy a train of camels and provisions for the journey.”
III
There was a silence in the hall of dreams where I was listening to the story of the other Wise Man. Through this silence I saw, but very dimly, his figure passing over the dreary desert, high upon the back of his camel, rocking steadily onward like a ship over the waves.
Through his journeying, I followed Artaban moving steadily onward, until he arrived at Bethlehem. It was the third day after the three Wise Men had come and had found Mary and Joseph with the young child Jesus and had laid their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh at his feet.
Then the other Wise Man drew near, weary, but full of hope, bearing his ruby and his pearl to offer to the king. Yet the streets of the village seem deserted and Artaban wondered whether the men had gone to the hill pastures to bring down the sheep. From the open door of a cottage he heard the sound of a woman’s voice singing softly. He entered and found a young mother hushing her baby to rest. She told him of the strangers from the far east who had appeared in the village three days before and how they said that a star had guided them to the place where Joseph of Nazareth was lodging with his wife and her new born child, and how they had paid reverence to the child and given him rich gifts.
“But the travelers disappeared again,” she continued, “as suddenly as they had come. We were afraid at the strangeness of their visit. The man of Nazareth took the child and his mother and fled that same night secretly, and it was whispered they were going to Egypt. Since then a spell has been upon the village; something evil hangs over it. They say Roman soldiers are coming to force a new tax from us, and the men have driven the flocks and herds far back among the hills and hidden themselves to escape it.”
Artaban listened to her gentle, timid speech and the child in her arms looked up in his face and smiled, stretching out his rosy hands to grasp the winged circle of gold on his breast. His heart warmed to the touch. “Why might not this child have been the promised prince?” he asked within himself, as he touched its soft cheek. “Kings have been born before this in lowlier houses.”
The young mother laid the baby in its cradle and rose to minister to the needs of the strange guest. She set food before him, the plain fare of peasants, willingly offered. Suddenly the noise of wild confusion rose in the streets, a shrieking and wailing of women’s voices, a clangor of brazen trumpets, a clashing of swords and a desperate cry: “The soldiers! Herod’s soldiers are killing our children.”
The mother’s face grew white. She clasped her child to her bosom and crouched motionless in the darkest corner of the room, covering him with the folds of her robe lest he should wake and cry.
Artaban went quickly and stood in the doorway of the house. His broad shoulders filled the portal from side to side and the peak of his white cap all but touched the lintel.
Soldiers hurried down the street with bloody hands and dripping swords. At the sight of the stranger in his imposing dress they hesitated with surprise. The captain of the band approached the threshold to thrust him aside. But Artaban did not stir.
“I am all alone in this place,” he said, “and am waiting to give this jewel to the prudent captain who will leave me in peace.”
He showed the ruby, glistening in the hollow of his hand like a great drop of blood. The pupils of the captain’s eyes expanded with desire, and the hard lines of greed wrinkled around his lips. He stretched out his hand and took the ruby.
“March on!” he cried to his men. “There is no child here.”
Artaban reentered the cottage and prayed: “God of truth, forgive my sin! I have lied to save the life of a child. And two of my gifts are gone. I have spent for man what was meant for God.”
But the voice of the young woman, weeping for joy in the shadow behind him said gently, “Because you have saved the life of my little one, may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace.”
IV
Again, there was a silence in the hall of dreams, deeper and more mysterious than the first interval and I understood that the years of Artaban were flowing very swiftly under the stillness.
I saw him moving among the throngs of men in populous Egypt, seeking everywhere for traces of the household that had come from Bethlehem. I saw him again in an obscure house of Alexandria, taking counsel with a Hebrew rabbi. The venerable man, bending over the rolls of parchment on which the prophecies of Israel were written, read aloud the pathetic words which foretold the sufferings of the promised Messiah—despised, rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
“And remember, my son,” he said, fixing his eyes on Artaban’s face, “the king whom you seek is not to be found in a palace nor among the rich and powerful. The light for which the world is waiting is a new light, glory that shall rise out of patient and triumphant suffering. And the kingdom which is to be established forever is a new kingdom, the royalty of unconquerable love. Those who seek him will do well to look among the poor and the lowly, the sorrowful and the oppressed.”
So, I saw the other Wise Man again and again, traveling from place to place, and searching among the people of the dispersion. He passed through countries where famine lay heavy on the land and the poor were crying for bread. He visited the oppressed and the afflicted in the gloom of subterranean prisons and the crowded wretchedness of slave-markets and the weary toil of galley-ships. In all this populous and intricate world of anguish, though he found none to worship, he found many to help. He fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and healed the sick, and comforted the captive; and his years passed more swiftly than the weaver’s shuttle that flashes back and forth through the loom while the web grows and the pattern is completed.
Then, at last, while I was thinking of his final gem, the pearl, I heard the end of the story of the other Wise Man.
V
Thirty-and-three years of Artaban’s life had passed away. Worn and weary and ready to die, but still looking for the king, he had come for the last time to Jerusalem. He had often visited the holy city before, but now it seemed as if he must make one more effort, and something whispered in his heart that, at last, he might succeed.
It was the season of Passover. The city was thronged with strangers. On this day, a singular agitation was visible in the multitude. The sky was veiled with portentous gloom. Currents of excitement seemed to flash through the crowd.
Artaban joined a group of people from his own country, Parthian Jews who had come up to Jerusalem to keep the Passover, and he inquired of them the cause of the tumult and where they were going.
“We are going,” they answered, “to the place called Golgotha, outside the city walls, where there is to be an execution. Two famous robbers are to be crucified, and with them another, called Jesus of Nazareth, a man who has done many wonderful works among the people, so that they love him greatly. Though the priests and elders have said that he must die because he gave himself out to be the Son of God. Pilate has sent him to the cross because he said that he was the ‘King of the Jews.’”
How strangely these familiar words fell onto the tired heart of Artaban. The King of the Jews. These words had led him for a lifetime over land and sea. Could it be the same who had been born in Bethlehem thirty-three years ago, at whose birth the star had appeared in the heavens, and of whose coming the prophets had spoken?
He said within himself: “The ways of God are stranger than the thoughts of men, and it may be that I shall find the king at last in the hands of his enemies and shall come in time to offer my pearl for his ransom before he dies.”
So, the old man followed the multitude with slow and painful steps. Just beyond the entrance of the guardhouse, a troop of Macedonian soldiers came down the street, dragging a young girl with torn dress and disheveled hair. She broke suddenly from her tormentors’ hands and threw herself at his feet clasping him around the knees. She had seen his white hat and the winged circle on his breast.
“Have pity on me,” she cried, “and save me. I also am a daughter of the true religion which is taught by the Magi. My father was a merchant of Parthia, but he is dead, and I am seized for his debts to be sold as a slave.”
Artaban trembled.
It was the old conflict in his soul, which had come to him in the palm-grove of Babylon and in the cottage at Bethlehem—the conflict between the expectation of faith and impulse of love. Twice the gift which he had consecrated to the worship of religion had been drawn to the service of humanity. This was the third trial, the final and irrevocable choice.
Was it his great opportunity, or his last temptation?
He took the pearl from his garment. Never had it seemed so luminous, so radiant so full of tender, living luster. He laid it in the slave’s hand.
“This is your ransom, daughter. It is the last of my treasures which I kept for the king.”
While he spoke, the sky darkened, and shuddering tremors ran through the earth heaving convulsively like the breast of one who struggles with mighty grief.
The walls of the houses rocked to and fro. Stones were loosened and crashed into the street. The soldiers took the pearl and fled in terror, reeling like drunken men. But Artaban and the girl whom he had ransomed crouched helpless beside the wall of the governor’s palace.
What had he to fear? What had he to hope? The quest was over, and it had failed. But, even in that thought, accepted, and embraced, there was peace. He knew that all was well because he had done the best that he could. He had been true to the light that had been given to him. He knew that even if he could live his earthly life over, it could not be otherwise than it had been.
One lingering pulsation of the earthquake quivered through the ground. A heavy tile, shaken from the roof, fell and struck the old man on his temple. He lay breathless and pale, with his gray head resting on the young girl’s shoulder and blood trickling from the wound. As she bent over him, fearing that he was dead, there came a voice through the twilight, very small and still, like music sounding from a distance, in which the notes are clear but the words are lost. The girl turned to see if someone had spoken from the window above them, but she saw no one.
The old man’s lips began to move, as if in answer, and she heard him say in the Parthian tongue.
“Not so, my Lord! When was it that I saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that I saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that I saw you sick or in prison and visited you? Three-and-thirty years have I looked for you; but I have never seen your face nor ministered to you, my king.”
He ceased, and the sweet voice came again. And again, the girl heard it, very faint and far away. But now it seemed as though she understood the words:
“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
A calm radiance of wonder and joy lighted the pale face of Artaban like the first ray of dawn on a snowy mountain peak. A long breath of relief exhaled gently from his lips.
His journey was ended. His treasures were accepted. The other Wise Man had found the king.
Preaching point: Does anyone really need guidance in understanding this story?
* * *
Enveloped Into Jesus’ Life
by David O. Bales
Ephesians 1:15-23
“Jesus’ view of life is okay, mostly … inspiring; but I don’t go much for his church.” Haley said. She had small, close together dark eyes, set so deep she appeared to be looking out of two small tunnels.
“The Buddha states all life is suffering,” Lyle said. His blue eyes protruded almost like a fly, and he spoke as casually as if his statement was a response in an evening long conversation among old friends. It wasn’t.
The subject of the conversation had slipped up on Clare. Her anxiety distracted her, and she wasn’t attentive to the two who’d been parked with her in this less than comfortable waiting area. She suddenly realized that her two fellow PhD candidates were speaking seriously. She wondered: “How did we get to this?” Three graduate students in philosophy, strangers and thrown together, seldom speak of faith, unless one plans to spring religion like a trap on every new acquaintance. Some dimwit, however, had plopped these three to await the committee’s decision to which of them the fellowship would be granted. Their lives hung on what an apologetic messenger would announce to them; yet, after five minutes of fidgeting together, Haley and Lyle were taking off on faith, their faith.
“I do my yoga everyday,” Haley said. “Although I admit that sometimes,” she giggled, shaking her head at her own contradiction, “I’m thinking about Kant or Wittgenstein … and reviewing for class discussion.”
“Sounds more western than eastern,” Lyle laughed and turned his blue eyes to Clare as though it were her turn to acknowledge some philosophical or religious stance toward life. She gave a small clearing of the throat (how did this conversation come about?) and said, “Thomism, basically, kind of at the crossroads of philosophy and theology.”
“Mmm,” Haley said, slurring the word into a statement and a question.
“Go on. Go on,” Lyle said, rolling his hand in front of Clare, his eyes seemed even more open as he urged her to continue.
Really, what was happening here? Come to apply for a PhD program and her two competitors seem like her allies, students like her who are interested in life and thus, very interesting people.
“It’s a long story,” she said, looking down, then glancing hopefully towards the hall that led to the professors’ conference room.
“Yes?” Haley said, her tiny dark eyes awaiting Clare’s statement of personal truth.
“I went to Austria for my senior year.”
Haley and Lyle nodded for her to continue.
“That’s where I got into philosophy. Germans can really string together the philosophical words.”
Lyle and Haley laughed. Haley said, “The Greeks compounded some pretty lengthy words too.”
“I met an Austrian philosophy student, Nela, and we became very close. She already had her masters. She’s where I learned everything important about Austria’s German side of history and culture. She loved to tell me anything I asked. Had the kind of a memory that retained everything she’d ever seen, heard or read.”
“Like Professor Pilsen,” Lyle said. “Amazing that people have such brains.”
“Nela was Christian. We hadn’t been friends long when she told me about the passion play at Oberammergau. She flittered the ditty off her tongue about Unterammergau and Oberammergau forwards and then backwards. That was a year ago. She insisted we go to the play because here I was in Austria in 2010—it’s only performed every ten years. I should go.
“I didn’t know much about the Bible, and some of the play about the Old Testament was lost on me. But, all those scenes of Jesus’ last week portrayed with the pomp, music and the flood of costumes. Hour after hour. My German was good by then. Didn’t miss much. I was taken in, taken up, enveloped, embraced. Nothing like a philosophy lecture.”
She looked quizzically at her companions, not wishing to offend them. They waited with their friendly, intelligent faces. She leaned forward to confide with them, “It’s like in those few hours I was told barely enough about God and Christ, yet it included me. I realized that day, although I couldn’t put it in words, that no matter what else happened, this would shape my life.”
Clare paused and took a breath. Lyle and Haley were genuinely involved in her story. She was flooded with affection for them. At the same moment, the thought flicked through her mind that only one of them would be granted the graduate position. It included a teaching assistantship with a stipend large enough actually to live on.
“I told Nela about it. ‘It can happen,’ she said. ‘Straight from the stage to your heart,’ and she started talking about Hitler. I thought, ‘What’s this got to do with Oberammergau and what’s just happened to me?’ We Americans had been instructed to be courteous about Hitler and Nazism. Only mentioned it if someone else brought up the subject. But Nela could explain whatever I wanted to know and in this case what I didn’t even ask. She plunged right in. ‘Hitler came to Oberammergau to the special performance in 1934—the 300-year anniversary. But this wasn’t the performance that changed him. He had an experience like yours when he was 16. He and a friend attended Wagner’s opera Rienzi. He was enraptured. He felt himself encircled and included in the plot. He said at the moment he’d been given his destiny to lead his people out of servitude. Well, the world knows what he dragged it into.’”
Clare was relaxed now. She leaned back. “Nela with her Christian heart put her hand on my shoulder and said, ‘God created us to serve a grand cause. Depends which one we surrender to. If you’ve experienced being enraptured, folded into Jesus’ story, it means you’ll now be formed by our Lord Jesus.’
“My thinking was like all ten bowling pins tipped over at once … before the bowling ball got to them. Mental chaos. I had six weeks before end of term to scramble around and question profs and fellow students and read philosophy and theology all night, and, of course, write papers. I came back from Europe determined to live for Christ. That’s about all I know, the minimum understanding of Christianity. Certainly don’t know where I’m going next.” She spread her hands to her companions and asked, “Know what I mean?”
Haley opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment the three saw a professor step from the conference room and walk towards them.
Preaching point: The eyes of the heart enlightened.
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StoryShare, November 22, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
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