Astronomer's story

 

The day I met you, changed me.

I had spent my life in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, being taught by the best minds in Arabia and studying alongside the brightest students in the country.  My parents had paid for me to travel so that I could expand my knowledge and I was considered one of the leading scientists in my field.  Which was geometry and astronomy.     Several weeks prior to my journey to Bethlehem I had been with a group of students calculating the next season of lunar phases  and mapping the stars when one of my youngest disciples asked a question  which changed the trajectory of my life.    He wanted to know what was my explanation for a comet which he thought he had seen the previous evening  in the eastern  skies.     I had assured him that the charts did not predict any such comet and that he must have been seeing a star or known satellite.   But he was adamant.   So that evening the students and I went out onto the hillside to see if we could identify the object.    As we searched the pitch black night sky I was soon able to make out the slightest smudge in the heavens where it most certainly had not been the week before.   I was puzzled.    The charts were invariably accurate  about the movement of the planets and the position of the stars.   I myself had  spent a good part of my life working on  mathematical calculations to determine the projected movement of heavenly bodies and this anomaly was certainly a variable I had not forseen or counted on.     Over the next several weeks the smudge in the sky turned into a clearly visible comet and it was moving at significant speed across the skies.    I contacted  some of my learned colleagues to discuss what this might mean. 

To cut a very long story short, we came to the conclusion that this new sign in the skies was a foretelling of something momentous which had happened, or was about to happen and consultation with the priests and oracles led us to believe that the event concerned the birth of a King.  

Personally I would have been happy just to chart and record the event and leave it there.   But my senior colleague Melchior seemed uncharacteristically excited about the whole thing and suggested that we research the comet in more detail.   He pointed out that this would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity  and that we might go down in history for discovering something  significant .  His suggestion was that we track the path of the comet , recording its proximity to earth, speed of travel and eventual disintegration or disappearance from view.   He was quite adamant that this needed to involve a road trip.  He later confessed to me that he was actually just really excited about the possibility of meeting a King !   And given that he had somehow managed to persuade the Council of Sciences to fund the trip..... well who was I to argue?  

We set off on our journey in high spirits.  Every few nights we would stop and record the position of the comet in relation to the stars and planets.   Our scribes were kept busy taking copious notes  and after a couple of weeks we found that the heavenly sign was now so close to the earth that we could see it in the daylight .   We followed the star through towns and deserts and over rivers and across mountains  ( the mountains were my least favourite part of the whole thing)   all the time travelling east.     Finally we arrived in Jerusalem.  

We had settled into a hostelry for a couple of days, needing time to re-stock our supplies and needing to rest the pack animals.   Of course we attracted some attention as we were foreigners on a mission and I suppose to the locals we probably looked rather .... different.     As we sat in the evenings in our hostel, with our charts on the tables in front of us, discussing the mathematical formulae which might predict where and when the comet might eventually disappear from sight , and what this might mean, we attracted quite a crowd.   Locals wanted to know who we were and what we were doing.   They had also been fascinated  ( and some had been downright terrified)  by the comet and many theories abounded as to its significance and meaning.   We explained that we believed that a King had been born and that this star was a sign in the heavens.     None of the locals had heard anything about the birth of a King, but many seemed deeply worried at the mention of such an event.   Apparently the political situation in Jerusalem at that time was rather precarious and some were worried that  Herod would not take the news of the birth of  rival well.

The third day, at around three in the afternoon, we were packing up our provisions and getting ready to start off again in pursuit of the star, when a herald arrived from none other than King Herod himself saying that we had been summoned to the palace.     It was made clear to us that we were to tell no-one where we were going, and that we were to arrive under cover of darkness.     We had no idea why.    But it isn’t every day you get invited into the presence of a King.   So that evening we crossed the plaza, ascended the steps and entered the Imperial Palace.    Quite some place let me tell you !

We were ushered into the presence of Herod – a rather overweight and uncouth man with very poor table manners and a habit of scratching his head whilst talking.     He was reclining at his dining table when we arrived and invited us to join him.   We had already eaten, but we weren’t going to refuse.    He immediately started to question us about our travels, about how long since we had first seen the star, where we thought it was headed and what we thought it might mean.    We answered his questions as well as we could telling him that as far as we could ascertain the comet was slowing and that it might start to disintegrate somewhere in the vicinity of Bethlehem.    Herod seemed agitated.    After about an hour of questions he suddenly stood up from the table and told us that we were to go to Bethlehem, find this new King and then return to Jerusalem to let Herod know how to find the child so that he too could go and pay homage to him.     Herod didn’t strike any of us as the sort of person who would pay homage to anyone or anything.   We left feeling distinctly uncomfortable about the whole thing.

Next morning we packed up and carried on eastwards.   The star was now so bright in the sky that we couldn’t actually look at it .  It was definitely slowing in its progress and, as we had predicted, by the time we reached Bethlehem it appeared to have completely stopped.   But rather than having consumed itself and vanished, as we understood was the way of these heavenly bodies, this one remained burning bright in the skies over Bethlehem.     There was a rising tide of excitement in all of us as we realised that we had reached our destination.    We found lodgings and started our search for a new King.

It didn’t take us long to find you.    You were the talk of the town.

Apparently there had been other odd astronomical phenomena happening over Bethlehem that month.   The people were buzzing with stories of lightning in the skies and music coming from the clouds and shepherds meeting angels.    As a result you were already a minor local celebrity and we soon found the rooms that your parents had rented .     As we approached the threshold of the simple farmer’s  home in which you were staying,  I felt a rush of joy and fear and anticipation which is hard to put into words.   We had started this journey most interested in a star, and now , all of a sudden, meeting you seemed to be much more important.  All important.  The only thing I really wanted and needed to do.   We knocked and the door was opened by a middle aged man with a happy smile who didn’t seem surprised to see us and invited us in.

Sitting by the window was a rather lovely young girl, holding a baby.   As we came in she stood up , set the baby in a cradle and invited us in to have refreshments.     I suddenly felt awkward and unready.   As though I was in the presence of greatness and importance.   I couldn’t understand it.   These people were simple peasants.    They were not Kings and Queens.    And yet they seemed more royal than Herod in his palace dressed in gold cloth and fine linen.     Melchior nudged me and I falteringly explained that we had travelled for many miles following the star and that we had come to visit the newborn King.    The mother smiled and looked out of the window.   She laughed and said that the star had been so bright she hadn’t been able to sleep for the last few nights.   Her laughter broke the tension in the room and we all relaxed.     She asked us if we would like to see you.    We all crept closer to the cradle.

You were wide awake and smiling.   I swear that you looked right at me and smiled.   You were just an ordinary baby boy – not unlike my own sons had been at that age.   Vulnerable yet robust.    Adorable and funny.    But when you looked at me I felt unnerved.   As though something in my soul had woken.   Or as if something in my spirit had been released.    It’s hard to describe but I knew as I looked at you that you were indeed destined to be a mighty King.   You had royalty in your chubby fingertips.     I found myself kneeling before you.    Melchior was in tears and was pulling off his gold ring and laying it in your cradle.      I suddenly felt the need to give you a gift too – and I reached inside my robe for the purse of frankincense and myrrh resins  I kept there.    I had always been able to afford the best in medicines and perfumes.    I gladly laid the purse in your cradle alongside the gold

ring.    Somehow these expensive gifts seemed inadequate and pathetic, but they were all we had and we gave them gladly.    Your mother watched as we knelt beside your cradle and didn’t say a word.     She seemed to understand that something holy was happening.    You raised your tiny hand, almost as if in blessing.    And then kicked your legs so hard that the gold ring went flying out of the cradle and rolled across the floor.    Everyone laughed.   We stood up and shook the hands of the peasant girl and her husband and left the room stunned by what had just happened.

That was the day I met you.     And that was the day I started to follow you rather than the stars.