This story relates a little known and hardly-true sub-plot in the New Testament. Speculative, not intended to offend, the main work is accessible only by opt-in following the introduction.
Jesus’s story excites us today because there’s so much blood.
Even his arrival 2,000 years ago, which provides a stunning contradiction, begat a massive slaughter. Here came a beam of light from the heavens so bright it directed three Easterners to Judea, yet failed to expose Jesus to King Herod, who’d put out a hit on all male children under age two. While the Bethlehem metropolitan area ran red with blood of the innocents, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph fled to Egypt before Herod’s sinister hand could take him out.
At birth, the baby Jesus was serenaded by a drummer boy, a little one, and was given gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Only gold passes down to us today as a thing of any real value. We enjoy it in the form of neck-chains with crucifixes, the point of which becomes clearer in the second part of this story. Some wear chains with a Star of David on them, and others a crescent moon, and still others elephants and horses and a fragrant herb which speakers of Latin call cannabis. Each carries their own symbolic meaning in contemporary society, much of it stirring bloodshed.
The rest of the story is accessible here.
Thank you, and Merry Christmas.
##
Ben East Books 
Leave a comment