11 Slave's Gift

 On the way to Bethlehem, Hathach thought, “Me—a foreigner—and Yahweh still chose to deal with me! No matter what others say, This Yahweh will be MY KING!” He felt in his clothes for the sack carrying the gold the merchants had given him for the “diamonds” he had been able to gather.

Melzar was beside himself with happiness. “But I never dreamed that I would see a great God get a lowly eunuch his mother’s smell—how gentle Yahweh is!”

Beorn felt he had failed the group. He hadn’t gotten them to Bethlehem before dark. But perhaps the innkeepers wouldn’t be too cross about travelers wanting to stop in at night.

As the camel caravan plodded over the sand dunes, and they saw the town of Bethlehem…the King Star shone brightly in the sky again.

It was Melzar--whose mother had given a love for astrology--who saw it first. “Beorn, the Star! The Star!”

And Hathach, knew that stars, which were actually far, far away, had to be guided by a powerful God in the Heavens for one to look to the human eye like a bright light moved across the night sky then stopped over one house.

“Quick, Beorn,” he said; “what were you reading in the sacred writings when you saw the King Star from your window in Babylon?”

“I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not near; there shall come a Star out of Jacob” (Num.24:17)

“It is your God Yahweh Who has sent us His Messiah;” Hathach said. And while his mouth kept moving, his eyes never once left the bright spot in the sky.  “And as a sign for us mortals, He has sent a Star.”

In one smooth move, he took out a big sack carrying what the merchants had given him. “Yahweh is MY KING; and HE WILL HAVE ALL MY GOLD.” To an open-mouthed Beorn, brief stories were told of how Hathach gathered gems in the desert then sold them in Jerusalem.

“And Yahweh is MY KING!” Melzar shouted, not to be undone. And, as if throwing the words out real hard, laughing and crying at the same time, he said, “and HE WILL HAVE ALL MY FRANKINCENSE!”

No matter what his friends said, Melzar would not be talked out of it. The God of the Universe Who loved, thought of, and even spoke of eunuchs in the sacred writings--why, Melzar couldn’t give Him anything less.

The star led the foreigner, eunuch, slave-turned-prince to the very house where their greatest hopes lived, smiling at Mary and Joseph as they played with Him.

The wise men knocked at the home, hardly daring to believe they had found the King, then they went in to see Him.

“Oh Mother! I have seen him! I have seen him!” Beorn cried out, but then he began to really cry. He felt Hathach and Meltzar had gifts for the King but he did not; he had nothing to give, there had been no time for him to get anything. Then he noticed a lump in his things.

The time after he had saved that officer’s girl, the mother had given him a small bottle, told him to keep it and sell it only when he really needed money. It would bring in much, she had said. Beorn had forgotten about it until now. What was it? He reached for it, held it up to the light.

Hathach, our scientist-mathematician, saw the shape of the container Beorn had picked up and let out a gasp.

“Beorn!...Where did you get that? You have a vial of …MYRRH!”

    Myrrh. When a tree is wounded, it “bleeds” a resin which is then used to make the base of many medicines. For a man who’s been wounded but wants to give every bit of his soul to Yahweh yet desperately needs His healing and freeing, could there have been a better gift to offer? (Myrrh. Expensive medicine, and Hathach may’ve known, as the Chinese do, myrrh can purge stagnant blood from the uterus so is ideal to give new mothers.)

“What is that you have in your hand…”　(Ex.4:2) Beorn said under his breath.

“What?” Hathach asked. “I can’t hear you.”

“Nothing. It’s just that when we come before Yahweh and tell him we can’t do something great, He often says, ‘I don’t want you to do something great; just give me what you have in your hand.’ That’s what He said to a prophet called Moses.””

“So, YAHWEH IS MY KING too, and I WILL GIVE HIM WHAT IS IN MY HAND: MYRRH!”

    Yahweh had given Beorn the gift he was to give back to Him...and Beorn didn’t even know it!