The Redeemer by Linda Rios Brook

seemed far worse. I couldn’t force myself to stay in Israel and listen to the wailing that poured out from the streets and homes day and night. Neither could I go back to the second heaven. Satan would be furious if he thought any demon—especially me—had developed sympathy for the Jews. He’d already accused me of being a traitor to his cause more than once. So I decided to go to Egypt and look for Jesus, maybe stay with Mary and Joseph for a while.
    They weren’t hard to find. The Jewish community in Egypt was small but very closely knit. Some of Joseph’s relatives had made the journey with them, and they were all living together in a nice house near the city. Before I knew it, Jesus was a toddler. I watched Him grow into a little boy not much different from any of the other boys who played with Him. He was good at games but never showed any extraordinary talent. Well, except for that one time when He raised a bird from the dead. That was an attention-getter, for sure.
    While playing and roughhousing, one of the boys threw a rock and hit a small bird that fell from his nest to the ground, dead.
    “Look what you did,” Jason, the youngest, cried out.
    “You killed him,” one of the others sobbed.
    “Don’t cry,” said James confidently. “Jesus can fix him.”
    Jesus was not more than four or five years old, and without thinking about what He was doing, He ran to the little bird, cupped it in His hands, and blew on it; then He opened His hands wide and the bird flew away.
    “Jesus healed the bird,” the children cried out gleefully.
    Mary and Joseph were beside themselves when they learned what had happened—but not like you might think at learning their little boy showed real potential for the medical field.
    “Jesus,” Mary got down on her knees to meet Him at eye level, “you must never do anything like this again. Now promise me.”
    At first I didn’t understand their reaction. Most parents would have been bragging about having a child prodigy.
    “He didn’t plan to do it, Mary,” Joseph said. “He isn’t old enough to know He must restrain His abilities. We’ll just have to keep a keener eye on Him.”
    “I know, but this will be on the town grapevine for weeks. These people don’t need any further provocation to speculate about us. It’s hard enough now knowing how people talk about us behind our backs.”
    Mary was right. The first thing I learned when I got to their village was how the rumor mill ground when it came to the family from Bethlehem. Many of the townspeople had heard reports about the angels and Jesus’ birth. However, by the time it was told over and over, the story was significantly changed from what had actually happened. Oh, it wasn’t that nobody believed the angels were involved. It was how they were involved that fueled the speculation. I can remember the first time I heard the men talking about it around a town bonfire one night.
    “You know they had to get married, don’t you? She was already pregnant.”
    “They didn’t have to do anything. Joseph could have put her away or had her stoned. He chose this path, though no one knows why.”
    “I heard that when he found out she was pregnant, he made up his mind to take care of the matter privately, but then he was visited by an angel who told him to go ahead and marry her.”
    “Handsome young craftsman like Joseph could have had his pick of real virgins.”
    “The cover story according to the family is that she got pregnant supernaturally.”
    Laughter came from both people.
    “I guess Joseph found out how supernatural it was all right when the angels appeared at the baby’s birth.”
    “Right, you might say the angels returned to the scene of the crime.”
    More laughter.
    “Don’t you know how ashamed Joseph felt when he finally figured out that Mary was impregnated by an angel?”
    “Is that what really happened?”
    “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Why do you think they left Israel in such a