Immortal by Glenn Beck

Melchior’s voice choked in his throat.
    The man smiled. “Come with me and see. My name is Joseph.”

Chapter 8

    T hey were not rich folk. The room they had been given was small and cramped, barely large enough for husband, wife, and child. The three scholar-kings crowded it, and Agios stood outside the doorway. Though he knew seeing the infant king would remind him of Philos—and though he dreaded it—he found himself drawn to the light that spilled from the small room. He had to restrain Krampus, who would have followed the scholars in. The misshapen man drew as close to the door as he could—and suddenly fell to his knees, staring.
    Agios watched in puzzlement, feeling strangely disturbed. He got only occasional glimpses of the mother and her child, because the three men kept bending to gaze at them, blocking Agios’s line of sight. To him the baby looked exactly like a baby, healthy enough, not much more than a month old, swaddled in plain linen and cradled asleep in his mother’s arms. The small head was crowned with curly brown hair, the cheeks were pink, the features delicate.
    Agios saw only a baby, not a king. And yes, he thought of Philos as he had been on the day of his birth, cradled in Weala’s arms as she crooned to him. Agios’s throat tightened.
    Krampus rocked from side to side and made an inarticulate sound, a sound of yearning and of awe. Agios softly called him, but Melchior glanced back with a smile—and with tears shining on his face—and shook his head gently. Agios let Krampus stay where he knelt.
    He stood near the doorway with his back to the room and listened as Caspar and Balthasar haltingly complimented the child, begged that their unworthy gifts be accepted by the parents, and knelt to honor the baby.
    The child’s mother spoke to them with great gentleness in her voice. They might have been her children, too —she had that air of motherhood about her, the kind of loving concern that Agios remembered seeing so often in Weala’s eyes. In plain and homely language, Joseph thanked them for their kind words.
    Then Melchior offered his praise and his adoration. When he rose to his feet, the kings presented their gifts, one after the other, and the mother wept and thanked them humbly.
    Joseph had said her name was Mary, and the infant’s name was Yeshua—Jesus, in the common tongue. Caspar and Balthasar murmured together of ancient prophecies. Agios caught the word “Immanuel,” an old Hebrew word meaning “God is with us.”
    Melchior asked the couple if he and his friends might hear the account of the child’s birth. Joseph said, “You tell them, Mary.” In a soft and rather shy voice, she told a strange story—a story of being visited by, yes, an angel, who had told her she would give birth to a son, whom she must name Jesus. She was a virgin then, she told them, though betrothed to Joseph. The angel had said that the son she was to bear would be the son of God Himself.
    Joseph took up the story: He, too, had been visited by the angel, who told him the truth of Mary’s pregnancy, not a disgrace but an honor to her. He did not break their engagement, but married her, knowing she carried a child like no other in the world.
    â€œI’m a carpenter in Nazareth,” he finished. “But I’m of the house of David, and when we were ordered to register for the census, we had to come here to Bethlehem, the home of my ancestors. It was a difficult journey. Mary’s time was close, and once here we could find nowhere to stay—the town was so crowded. No one had room.”
    Mary said, “Until the keeper of this inn, out of kindness and pity, said we might stay in the stable. It was a roof over our heads, and it was warm.”
    Joseph resumed: “And so our child was born in the manger of this inn. We saw signs and wonders at the time of his birth, and we know the story the