SEARCHING FOR THE KING OF KINGS
A Children’s Christmas Story
This story is published based on a Christmas Pageant play written in 2014 by Jim Davis and performed and video recorded in St. Stephen’s Anglican Church, Ottawa, Ontario.
Three wise and kind magi were on the viewing platform of their observatory, hours before the dawn. Their backs were turned to the east, as they gazed on a miraculous sight: an unfamiliar star was glowing with exceptional brightness, low in the western sky. A child-servant remained hidden and undetected in the shadows nearby, listening to the three kings talking. The magi discussed the sudden appearance of so brilliant a newcomer to the heavens, and they determined that it must be an important sign that a new and great king would soon take his place on a great throne: a King of Kings.
Later, the following night, two children were looking up into the early evening heavens, from a street in the town. The child-servant spoke.
“I heard my master in the early morning talking about that strange star. He told his two guests that the star meant the birth of a great king, perhaps one who would save a people, Israel, to the west; or maybe even – a King of Kings – who might be the one to save all people.”
“Perhaps a kind king would save and help even us, … if we asked”, his companion replied.
Nodding, the child servant responded, “Even though I am afraid, I think we should go to Jerusalem, following a little behind my master’s servants, so as to not be noticed by anyone, yet close enough for protection from bandits.”
“I am not afraid of anything”, the other boy asserted. “I am all alone with no family to miss me; no parent or master to tell me what to do. But I will go with you … because you are my only friend.”
The magi assembled a caravan to travel with all their needed provisions and essential servants. They started out early one morning, guided by the bright star on a journey that took them westward.
Three nights out, one of the two visiting kings became aware of two children following behind the servants at a short distance, and he noticed them trying to snatch some bread. He called his own lead servant on the caravan aside, and asked,
“Who are those children lagging behind our caravan? Make sure you leave a little bit of clean food and a skin of water behind in the ditch each night for them to find just before we stop. And do not trouble them, for they are of concern to me. Are my instructions clear, good servant?”
And so it was, that after many days of travelling in the late evenings and early mornings, the magi met up with another caravan heading in the opposite direction. The caravan from the west had heard nothing at all, of a new prince having been born to royalty in Jerusalem. Two children traveling with the east bound caravan met with the child-servant later that night, when he shared some of his bread and water with them.
The older of the two spoke up quietly, “That kind master of your caravan sounds like … and even looks a little like my missing father. My greedy uncle will not miss me, he is too busy with his money and his caravan; please, may we run away with you? I have a friend here who will come too; she is my uncle’s slave.”
The little slave then told of a terrible storm, “A horrible wind came in from the southeast sea, taking everything in our village and leaving no one else but me alive. All alone, I was captured by bandits and sold to a spices caravan to feed and water their animals. I have been sold many times since. Please could we go with you; maybe when you find the King of Kings, he will save you and perhaps help us, too?”
Secretly, they then joined the child-servant and his friend the next day, as the magi’s caravan continued westward in the early hours before the dawn, on their way to the royal city of Jerusalem.
Tired and expecting to hear news of a prince and future king having been born, the magi arrived at the palace in the famous city of Jerusalem. They asked the royal servants at the king’s palace for an audience with King Herod, so that they could see the royal baby and future king and give him gifts. The Jewish king was mystified and inwardly alarmed. A new and great “King of Kings” would certainly challenge and even end his rule and lineage in Judea. After urgent secret discussions with his priests, Herod directed the strange visitors from the far east to travel to the nearby town of Bethlehem and look there for the baby, in accordance with the holy Jewish scriptures. He told his servants as the magi were leaving the palace, to go and, once again, remind them to return and report to him when they had found this baby who would be a king.
Outside, at the base of the palace steps, the child-servant and his three friends were quietly talking with two street children who had followed the caravan from the city gates. One was dressed in a strange sort of short coat. When someone asked him about his “jacket”, he replied, “You would be surprised at what people throw away, in a ditch, when they’re angry. Look at this jacket, I found it lying in the freezing cold just outside a pub, late one night.” The child servant shared the last of the remaining food they had found at the side of the road the previous day. Rather weirdly, the second street child hurriedly stuffed her share of the food into the folds of HER strange clothing.
“You can’t have any of my food;” she abruptly blurted out. “…I have to keep it safe; I have to save it; …I can’t share it. We don’t have any good potatoes. I… I…, it …it, …it may run out”.
The boy with the strange “jacket” tried to draw the attention away from his troubled friend by asking the other children questions about why they were in Jerusalem. The child-servant responded with a telling of the journey they had undertaken to find the King of Kings: a royal baby that was to be born somewhere in Jerusalem – the Royal City. The street kid with the jacket then told the other children of a wonderous story of a baby just newly born that he had recently heard when hawking some stolen bread to some shepherds in the nearby hills for a little bit of money. The child servant paid particularly close attention to what HE was saying.
After the unsettling meeting at the palace, the magi were feeling very uneasy about remaining in Jerusalem – even just for the night. They decided to quietly and quickly leave the city to continue on their way to Bethlehem. That was the little and poor town suggested by the Jewish priests, when the magi were at Herod’s court. Were the priests to be believed or was it just a trick?!
Hours later the magi and their caravan stopped about halfway to their destination and next to the hillside camp of some local shepherds. The tired children lay down and soon were fast asleep; all but one, and he quietly rose and left the group of friends.
Just as the magi were laying down to get some rest, they were roused when the child servant respectfully crept from the shadows and move fully into their presence. They were astonished when he revealed himself to his master and told the magi of what the street child had said of these very same shepherds camped nearby. The magi hastened and visited the camp and learned for themselves of the recent and wonderous birth of a baby named Jesus – clearly a very special baby, born in a crude stable but announced by a choir of singing angels. The magi decided to immediately continue the last few hours to see if the baby was still in that same stable. Two of the shepherds agreed to go with them. Guided by the star and the shepherds, the magi and the six children arrived to find the baby and his parents still staying there and all fast asleep. The parents awoke and welcomed the important looking magi who wanted to see their newborn baby boy. The kings were filled with awe and reverence.
Mary, the baby’s mother, noticed the children standing quietly in the shadows. She invited them to come closer so that they could see her baby, as well.
Mary asked them, “Do you also have gifts, little ones?”
“We are sorry, but we are just children. We really have nothing to give to your baby”, the child-servant replied.
“Little ones, have you travelled very far?”
“As far as the kings”, his orphaned friend responded.
“Why did you come on such a long and dangerous journey?”
“We are searching for the King of Kings, the Messiah, the Saviour of Humanity…”, they all responded, excitedly.
“The one who will guide us…”, clarified the young slave girl.
“…The one who will always cherish us”, added the girl with the missing father.
“… The one who will always help us”, offered the potato famine girl.
“… The one who will forever love us”, said the boy with the strange jacket.
“And the one who will save us from ourselves”, finished the child-servant.
“Have you found him here?”, Mary gently asked.
“Yes!”, they responded.
“Will you love my son, even when things are hard for you?”
They paused for just a moment …, and then again, “Yes!” , …with innocence and certainty.
“Then you have already given him the most precious gift possible, one that he would gladly die for … because you are each so very special to him.”
The baby stirred in his bedding. The ox and the donkey looked on, and the three wise men gently moved over, to let the children get even closer to the baby.
And that, my precious ones, is the story of the children and the magi who searched for and found the King of Kings and the Saviour of us all.
Jim Davis
Copyright Protected
Jim Davis Creative Arts: Paintings, Poetry, Prose, and Commentary 