Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt Read Online Free PDF

from Jerusalem to the town of Bethlehem and ..."
    "No more!" Joseph said, though he smiled and nodded as he put up his hand.
    He drew me away. Quickly and firmly, he brought me towards the women. James he allowed to stay there.
    The wind swallowed up all their words. But what happened in Bethlehem?" I asked him.
    "You'll hear stories about Herod's deeds all your life," Joseph said under his breath. "Remember, I told you that there were some questions that I didn't want for you to ask."
    "Will we still go to Jerusalem?"
    Joseph didn't answer. "Go there, and sit with your mother and the children," he said.
    I did what he said.
    The wind was blowing hard now and the boat was heaving. I felt a little sick. I was getting a little cold.
    Little Salome was waiting to question me. I snuggled in between her and my mother. It was warm here and I felt better.
    Joses and Symeon were already asleep in their lumpy bed among the bundles. Silas and Levi were huddled together with Eli, who was the nephew of Aunt Mary of Uncle Cleopas, who had come to live with us. They were pointing to the sail and to the rig.
    "What were they saying?" Salome wanted to know.
    "Trouble in Jerusalem," I said. "I hope we go," I said. "I want to see it." I thought of all the words I'd heard. I said excitedly, "Salome, just think of it, people from all over the Empire are going to Jerusalem."
    "Yes, I know," she said. "It's the best thing we've ever done."
    "Yes," I said with a big sigh. "I hope Nazareth is a fine place as well."
    My mother sighed and threw back her head.
    "Yes, you must see Jerusalem first," she said sadly. "As for Nazareth, it is the will of God it seems."
    "Is it a big town?" asked Little Salome.
    "Not a town at all," my mother said.
    "No?" I asked.
    "A village," she said. "But it was once visited by an angel."
    "People say that?" Little Salome asked. "That an angel came to Nazareth? It really happened?"
    "No, people don't say it," said my mother, "but I know it."
    She went quiet. It was her way. To say small things, and nothing more. After that, she wouldn't say anything even though we asked her over and over again.
    My uncle Cleopas came back, sick and coughing, and lay down and my aunt covered him and patted him.
    He heard us talking about angels in Nazareth—saying that we hoped we would see them—and he began his not so secret laughing.
    "My mother says Nazareth was once visited by an angel," I told him. I knew that he just might tell us something. "My mother says she knows this." And his laughter only ran on as he curled up to sleep.
    "What would you do, Father?" Little Salome asked him. "If you saw an angel of the Lord with your own eyes in Nazareth?"
    "Just what my beloved sister did," he answered me. Obey the angel in everything he told me to do." And again came his low private laughing.
    A terrible anger came over my mother. She looked over at her brother. My aunt shook her head as if to say let it all go. This was her way with her husband.
    And usually it was my mother's way too, to let things go with her brother, but not this time.
    Little Salome saw all of this, this look of anger on my mother's face, something so surprising I didn't know what to make of it, and I looked up and saw that James too was there, watching, and I knew that he had heard it. I was very sorry to see this. I didn't know what to do. But Joseph sat quietly away from all of this just thinking to himself.
    I had a sense of something then, and why I'd never sensed it before I don't know. It was that Joseph put up with Cleopas but never really answered him. For him, he'd made this voyage over sea rather than land. And for him, he'd go to Jerusalem, even if there were trouble. But he never answered him. He never said anything to all Cleopas' laughing.
    And Cleopas laughed at everything. In the House of Prayer, he would laugh when he thought the stories of the prophets were funny. He would start to laugh very low and then the little children, such as myself, would