Jesus is for everybody.
The Master nobody showed you.
The night he arrived, it smelled of wet limestone and animal fear.
Before the child drew breath, the decision had already been made. In a realm where time folds back on itself, the Sovereign who had spoken this corner of reality into existence chose to enter it. Not as a visitor. Not as an observer. As an infant—helpless, hungry, mortal. He would forget, for a time, what he was. He would learn to crawl, to speak, to grieve. He would inherit a world infected by an ancient severance, a quarantine of the spirit that had left this small planet stumbling in the dark.
Gabriel carried the weight of the commission. Melchizedek had prepared the ground centuries before. The rest was flesh and blood and decades of silence.
The contractions came faster now.
Mary gripped the straw with both hands, her knuckles white, her jaw locked against the sound that wanted to escape. The stable was cold. The single oil lamp threw shadows that jumped with each gust of wind through the gaps in the stone.
Joseph crouched beside her, one hand on her shoulder, the other wrapped around the handle of an adze. It was all he had. He was a carpenter. This was what carpenters carried.
“Breathe,” he said. “Just breathe.”
She couldn’t answer. Another wave hit and her body arched and she made a sound that wasn’t quite human.
Outside, a dog barked. Then another. Then the dogs went quiet.
Joseph’s hand tightened on the adze.
Hooves. Distant at first, then closer. Multiple horses. Moving with purpose.
“They’ve found us,” Mary whispered.
Joseph stood. Positioned himself between her and the door. The adze felt ridiculous in his hand—a woodworking tool against whatever was coming. But it was what he had.
The hooves stopped outside.
Voices. Low. A language he didn’t recognize.
Then footsteps approaching the stable door.
Ardnon had been tracking the signal for eleven months.
He dismounted and studied the structure. A converted cave, really. Stone walls. Hay on the ground. Animals shuffling in the darkness. The smell of dung and old grain. Something metallic underneath. Blood, maybe. Birth.
“This is it?” Kaspar’s voice behind him. Skeptical.
“The calculations don’t lie.”
“The calculations said a king would be born here. This is a stable.”
Ardnon didn’t answer. He’d learned not to argue with the astronomy. The conjunction had been precise. The prophecies aligned across three separate traditions. If the child was here, the child was here.
He signaled to Balthazar to secure the perimeter. The big Persian moved without sound, disappearing around the back of the structure. Kaspar took position at the road, watching for Roman patrols.
Ardnon approached the door alone.
He’d felt it since they’d entered the valley. A pressure in his chest. A thickness in the air. He’d spent thirty years as an intelligence operative for the Parthian court. He’d extracted assets from hostile territory, bribed Roman officials, survived two assassination attempts. He didn’t spook easily.
But something in this stable was making his skin crawl.
He pushed open the door.
A young man stood in the center of the space, holding a carpenter’s tool like a weapon. Behind him, a girl—barely more than a child herself—lay in the straw. She’d just given birth. The evidence was everywhere.
And in her arms, wrapped in rough cloth, was an infant.
“Who are you?” The young man’s voice was steady, but his hands weren’t.
Ardnon raised his palms. “We are not your enemy.”
The words hung in the cold air.
Joseph didn’t lower the adze.
The man in the doorway was older than him by twenty years, maybe thirty. Face like a map of hard miles. Eyes that had seen things. He wore Persian traveling clothes, expensive but practical. Behind him, Joseph could see the shapes of horses, the suggestion of other men.
“My name is Ardnon. We’ve come from the east. We’ve been following a sign.”
“What sign?”
“A star. A conjunction. And prophecies older than either of our peoples.” Ardnon’s eyes moved past Joseph to Mary, to the child. “We believe the one born tonight will be significant. We’ve come to verify. And to help.”
“Help how?”
“Herod knows.”
The word hit Joseph like a physical blow. Herod. The name everyone in Judea whispered. The paranoid king who’d killed his own sons when he suspected disloyalty.
“Knows what?”
“That a child would be born in Bethlehem who might threaten his throne. We passed through Jerusalem three days ago. He questioned us. We told him we were seeking an astronomical phenomenon. He pretended to believe us.” Ardnon’s jaw tightened. “He didn’t believe us. We’ve been followed since we left the city.”
“Followed by who?”
“His men. They lost us in the hills, but they’ll find this place by morning. Maybe sooner.”
Mary made a sound. Joseph turned. She was looking at the infant in her arms with an expression he couldn’t read.
“What do you want from us?” Joseph asked.
“Nothing you wouldn’t give freely. We have resources. Gold. Trade goods. Enough to get you out of Herod’s reach.” Ardnon paused. “We have intelligence about his plans. Every male infant in this region, two years old and under. He’s mobilizing soldiers tonight. The kill order is already signed.”
Joseph felt the ground shift beneath him.
“Why would you help us?”
“Because if this child is what the signs suggest, his survival matters. To everyone. Not just your people.”
“And if he’s just a child?”
Ardnon almost smiled. “Then you’ll have gold and a head start on the soldiers. Either way, you live.”
Joseph looked at Mary. She was watching the Persian with those dark eyes that had always seen more than they should.
“Let him approach,” she said quietly.
Joseph hesitated. Then he stepped aside.
Ardnon crossed the stable slowly.
The girl—Mary, he’d learn later—watched him come. She was young. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. But her eyes were old. She’d seen something. Known something. Carried something for nine months that had changed her.
The infant in her arms was silent. Not sleeping—Ardnon could see the eyes were open. Just quiet. Watching.
Strange, for a newborn. Most infants came into the world screaming. This one observed.
He knelt beside her. Protocol required verification. Physical examination of the child for the markers the prophecies described. Assessment of the parents’ lineage. Documentation for his report to the Parthian court.
“May I?” He gestured toward the child.
Mary hesitated. Then she shifted the bundle toward him.
Ardnon reached out. Moved the cloth aside to see the face more clearly.
The infant opened his eyes fully.
And looked at him.
Later, Ardnon would try to describe what happened in that moment. He would fail. The words didn’t exist in any of the seven languages he spoke.
It wasn’t an infant’s gaze. Newborns can’t focus. Their eyes wander, unfixed, taking in light and shadow without comprehension.
This child’s eyes focused. On him. Through him.
Something vast looked back.
For an instant—a fraction of a heartbeat—Ardnon felt himself seen. Not his face. Not his body. Everything beneath. The missions. The lies. The men he’d killed and the ones he’d saved. Prayers whispered in the dark. Doubts that followed. His childhood. His future. His death. All of it held in a gaze that contained distances he couldn’t measure.
The presence behind those eyes had predated the stars.
Ardnon stopped breathing.
His hand trembled. First time in thirty years.
He almost fell backward. Caught himself. Steadied.
The infant blinked. And then it was just a baby. Just a newborn’s unfocused eyes. A child like any other child.
But Ardnon had seen.
In that instant, he had not seen a child who would become a king.
He had seen the King, who had, for a time, become a child.
“Ardnon?”
Kaspar’s voice from the doorway. Concerned.
Ardnon realized he’d been kneeling in silence for too long. His hand was still extended toward the infant. Still trembling.
He pulled it back. Stood. His legs felt wrong beneath him.
“Bring the gifts.”
Kaspar disappeared. Returned a moment later with three wrapped packages.
Ardnon took them. Turned back to the parents.
“Gold.” He set the first package down. Heavy. The girl’s eyes widened. “Enough to establish yourself anywhere in the empire. Use it wisely. Don’t flash it.”
“Frankincense.” The second package. “Trade goods. Valuable, portable.”
He hesitated on the third.
“Myrrh.”
Joseph frowned. “Burial resin?”
Ardnon held his gaze. “For preservation.” The lie was thin. Everyone knew what myrrh was for. “Travel can be hard on infants.”
Mary’s eyes met his. She understood. The gift wasn’t practical. It was prophetic. This child would need burial resin someday.
She accepted it anyway.
“Where do we go?” Joseph asked.
“Egypt. Alexandria. The Jewish quarter there is large. You’ll be anonymous. Herod’s reach doesn’t extend that far.” Ardnon pulled a folded paper from his robe. “A map. The route we recommend. Avoid the main roads. Travel at night when possible.”
Joseph took it. Studied it. His hands had stopped shaking. He was adapting. Good. They’d need that.
“How much time do we have?”
“Hours. Not days. We’ll draw the pursuit east. Buy you what time we can.”
Mary was already moving. Wrapping the child more securely. Gathering the few possessions scattered around the stable. She moved like someone who’d been expecting this. Like someone who’d known, since the day a messenger appeared in her room nine months ago, that her life would never be ordinary again.
Joseph helped her onto the donkey. The infant didn’t make a sound.
At the stable door, Ardnon stopped them.
“The shepherd’s path. North around the village, then south. Stays off the main road for the first three miles.”
Joseph nodded.
Ardnon looked at the infant one more time. Those eyes. Still watching. Still quiet.
He’d extracted dozens of assets in his career. Protected future kings. Bribed his way through checkpoints. Survived everything the world had thrown at him.
None of them had ever looked at him like that.
“Go,” he said. “The soldiers will be here soon.”
They went.
The night was cold.
Mary held the infant close against her chest, trying to keep him warm with her body heat. The donkey’s rhythm was jarring. Every step sent pain through her. She’d given birth hours ago. She should be resting. Should be sleeping. Should be surrounded by women who knew what to do.
Instead she was fleeing through the dark, her husband walking beside her with a carpenter’s tool in his hand, following a map given by strangers toward a country she’d never seen.
The infant was silent.
Unnervingly silent.
Normal babies cried. Fussed. Demanded. This one just watched. His eyes caught the starlight and held it.
Joseph scanned every shadow. Every sound made him tense.
“Do you think they were telling the truth?” Mary whispered. “About Herod?”
“Does it matter? We couldn’t stay either way.”
She knew he was right. She’d felt it too. The pressure building since the birth. The sense that something was watching. That forces were moving in the dark, forces larger than Roman soldiers or Jewish kings.
She’d felt it since Gabriel came to her. The weight of something she couldn’t name.
She looked down at her son.
For a moment she saw what the Persian had seen. The vastness behind the infant’s eyes. The presence that predated everything.
Then it was gone. Just her child. Just a newborn. Hungry, probably. Human.
But she’d seen.
And she understood, in that moment, that her life had just become something she couldn’t control. That she was carrying a weight that would either crush her or transform her. That the child in her arms was her son. And more than her son.
She bent her head and whispered to him: “Whatever you are, I’ll protect you. For as long as I can.”
The infant’s hand moved. Touched her chin. The fingers were so small.
She felt tears on her face. Didn’t wipe them away.
They heard hoofbeats an hour before dawn.
Joseph froze. Pulled the donkey off the path, into a cluster of rocks. Mary pressed the infant against her, willing him to stay silent.
The hoofbeats grew louder. Passed the rocks. Faded toward the east.
They waited.
Nothing.
Joseph exhaled. “Wrong direction. They’re heading to Bethlehem.”
Mary thought of the other infants in that town. The other mothers who would wake to soldiers.
“We can’t help them,” Joseph said, reading her face. “We can only keep moving.”
She knew he was right. She hated that he was right.
They continued south.
Dawn found them miles from Bethlehem.
Joseph let them rest in a ravine where a trickle of water ran over stones. Mary nursed the infant while Joseph ate dried figs and watched the road.
“What did you see?” she asked. “When you looked at him just now?”
“My son.”
“Nothing else?”
He was quiet for a long moment. “Sometimes. Flashes. Like there’s something behind his eyes that’s too big to fit.” He looked at her. “You?”
“The same.”
“Does it scare you?”
She considered the question. “Yes. But not the way I thought it would.”
She looked down at the child. He’d fallen asleep. Just a baby now. Small and fragile and dependent on them.
“Gabriel said he would save his people,” she said. “I didn’t ask what that would cost.”
“Would you have said no if you’d known?”
“I don’t know.” She stroked the infant’s cheek. “But I said yes. And here we are.”
Joseph looked back toward Bethlehem. Smoke was rising somewhere in the distance. Or maybe it was his imagination.
He didn’t tell Mary.
“We should keep moving,” he said.
They traveled for three more days.
The landscape changed. Hills gave way to flatter ground. The air grew drier. They passed other travelers—merchants, pilgrims, Roman patrols that barely glanced at the young family on the donkey.
On the fourth night, they crossed into Egypt.
Mary didn’t know the exact moment. There was no marker, no gate. Just a sense that the pressure she’d felt since Bethlehem had finally eased. Whatever was hunting them couldn’t follow here.
They stopped at an oasis. Other travelers were camped nearby. Someone had a fire going.
Joseph traded a small amount of the gold for bread and cheese and a skin of water. They ate in silence, the infant asleep in Mary’s arms.
“Alexandria is still days away,” Joseph said. “But we’re safe now. For a while.”
Mary looked at her son. At this child who had chosen to be born to them. To her. A girl from Nazareth with nothing to offer but her willingness.
“I don’t think ‘safe’ means what it used to,” she said.
Joseph almost laughed. “No. I don’t think it does.”
The sun rose over the Egyptian desert, indifferent to kings and infants and the slow grind of history.
Somewhere behind them, soldiers were knocking on doors. Somewhere behind them, mothers were screaming.
Somewhere ahead, a city waited. Anonymous. Overwhelming. Safe—for now.
Mary adjusted the child in her arms. He stirred. Opened his eyes. Looked at her.
Just a baby. Just her son.
And something else.
Something that would grow. That would learn. That would forget, for a time, what it truly was.
Until the day it remembered.
She whispered to him as the donkey carried them forward:
“Not yet. You’re not ready yet. And neither am I. So just be small. Just be mine. For as long as we have.”
The infant’s eyes drifted closed.
And the family moved south, toward Alexandria, toward the years of hiding that would shape a boy into something the world had never seen.
Next Monday: The Egypt Years
<3 EKO
This is my new weekly serial about Jesus. The parts nobody tells you.
Want more now? Read The Magi: Extraction Protocol for the full Ardnon story.
New episodes every Monday.
P.S. Jelly Roll at the Grammys. Bieber this week. Nicki too. Something’s shifted.
This story belongs to whoever needs it.
Welcome.
I love you.
Thoughtful, insightful, courageous.
You truly live and walk with Christ. Through your words, God speaks to all of us. You are a blessing to this world. Thank you for what you do and who you are.
P.P.S. A new Budweiser commercial. A horse and an eagle. No sign of Dylan Mulvaney or the evil that represented.
You are right, EKO. The times have changed. The pendulum is swinging back. You can sense it in the air. Much faster than we thought.
All of us, all of us here anyway, knew that this day would come. We did not know when, or if we would live to see it -- but we knew. Now we should enjoy it, but always remember that as Ronald Reagan once said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States, where men were free.”