Advent and Christmas Stories by Estelle Bryer

Author:Estelle Bryer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hawthorn Press

The Wise Men’s Well

Once upon a time, three wise men from the East were following a wandering star to pay homage to the newborn King, the Jesus child, who had been born to bring light and love to the earth. They prepared gifts, organised camels, horses and servants to follow them, and departed their kingdoms.

King Melchior brought a casket of gold. King Balthazar carried sweet smelling frankincense, and King Caspar bore a jar of the healing herb myrrh.

Each king was wonderfully arrayed in robes of red, green and midnight blue, and brought with them pearls and precious stones.

The star went before them, but after following it for many weeks, their rich trappings that had so delighted them when they left, became a burden. Often they feared for their riches, or that they might be robbed, or even that the swirling sands of the desert would swallow them up. They no longer saw the wind as a friend, sifting and rustling through the grasses, but as an enemy, scratching their skins and blowing sand in their eyes. But they walked ever onwards, led by the star that hung brightly in the heaven.

They grew tired, and began to wonder, ‘What if there is no child?’ ‘What if the star is going nowhere?’ They began to doubt their vision, that of the mother with a crown of stars in her hair, and the child on her lap beckoning to them. Did they dream it all?

Soon they came to an arid desert where no trees grew, and no grasses swayed in the wind. They journeyed on, and it wasn’t long before they found their water growing scarce, and there was no more anywhere. They slept in snatches, journeying on through the night when it was cooler and the star shone brighter than ever before them. More and more they doubted if they were really doing the right thing.

One evening, however, when the sun disappeared behind the sand dunes, and it grew dark, no star appeared to greet them. The kings cried to their God in anguish: ‘Forgive us, we doubted the child, we are lost …lost. No crowns or rich robes can help us now.’ The kings wandered in the desert without the star to guide their way, until, in the dawn’s first light they chanced on a green place among the sand dunes where palm trees stood - an oasis! The kings hurried towards it and stooped to drink from the well that stood at the centre, when lo, they saw reflected in the depths of the well their star shining brightly! And even as they gazed at it in wonder, it changed to the picture that they had all seen before. There, in the depths of the blue water, they saw a mother with a crown of stars in her hair, and on her knee sat the shining child, beckoning them to come to Him. The wise men lifted their heads and looked into the heavens … and there was the star, shining brightly even in the midst of the day.

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