The Messiah problem

Mary had left the island when she was still a young girl and had no interest in returning. There was nothing to do there, the only inhabitants were a couple of middle-aged men who spent their lives herding the island’s geep (even sheep spurned the island) and she left to enjoy the busyness of life on the mainland.

However, on this occasion she had no choice but to come back. The mainland council had issued a Census Decree calling for all citizens to return to the place of their birth, for what the council PR department was calling The Big Headcount.

Normally Mary would have no problem making the journey, but it so happened that at the time of the Big Headcount she was heavily pregnant. Given her state she could not risk travelling on the public ferry, which was notoriously rough, and instead she hired a small boat for the journey: The Donkey, on which slow and awkward vessel she slowly sailed her way to the obscure island of her birth.

With little money and no friends she was forced to stay in the only available place on the whole island: the empty house. When she got there it was cold, empty, musty and abandoned. There was no food, but she was too tired to care and crashed out asleep.

xxx

A few months previously, while Mary was taking an early evening bath, an angel had appeared before her. Mary made great efforts to cover her modesty with a medium-sized flannel, but to no avail.

“Hail Mary, I come with great tidings.”

“I don’t care about your tidings, avert your gaze, I am in a state of undress.”

“You have nothing to fear Mary, I am an angel of the lord.”

“I don’t care whose angel you are, I don’t want you looking at my bits.”

“I wasn’t looking at your bits.”

“Yes you were.”

“Alright, I’ll avert my gaze.” He averts his gaze. “Mary, I am Gabriel, angel of the lord, thou art highly in favour…”

“Gabriel? That’s a girl’s name surely.”

“Actually no, that’s a common mistake, it’s spelt differently from the female version. Besides, angels aren’t gender-conscious in the way that mere mortals are.”

“It’s just as well. Here on Earth you’d be teased something rotten.”

“Have you finished? Right, I shall continue. Mary, I am the angel Gabriel and I come direct from god with glad tidings. You are blessed Mary, you are to become a mother. This Christmas you shall give birth to a son and you shall name him Jesus”

“I should bloody well hope not. I’m not married. I have never, you know, given cause for pregnancy to occur.”

“There is no need for the hand of man in this conception. The holy ghost shall enter thee…”

“The holy goat?”

“Ghost, the Holy Ghost. The spirit of the lord shall enter thee and endow you with the richest of gifts, the son of man.”

“I thought you said he was the son of god.”

“He is the son of god. He’s also known as the son of man.”

“Won’t that cause confusion?”

“Mary, Mary, don’t be so contrary. You are to be blessed by the greatest gift.”

“The greatest gift? I can tell you’ve never been through childbirth. And think of the shame it will bring me, a single mother.”

“We were rather hoping you would marry, Mary.”

“Marry. Who, the holy ghost?”

“No of course not, you can’t marry a ghost. It is Joseph you shall marry, Mary.”

“Joseph! But he smells of wood.”

“Of course he smells of wood. He’s a carpenter.”

“But I don’t love Joseph. How can I marry him?”

“Love you say. You shall give birth to the son of god, Jesus - who is love itself, he will have enough love to give for the whole of mankind.”

“Yeah, very nice I’m sure, but I’m not the sort of girl that marries just because an angel told me to on the vague promise that even if my husband doesn’t love me my son will love everybody else.”

“Very well, it is your choice, God will find a way. I will leave you now Mary, with the love of God to help you through these difficult time.”

“What, I don’t even get any paternity payments. What sort of loving god is he?

“Hello angel? Where’ve you gone? Don’t leave me. I’m all alone. I don’t want to have a baby all alone. Why did you choose me? I don’t even like babies. You stupid god, you’ve got the wrong girl.”

xxxxx

Very early one morning I was watching my geep on the hillside when I was awoken by a vigorous shaking of my shoulder. It was Alun.

“It’s the son of god Jed, he is to be born here on our little island.”

“Are you sure?” I said. It seemed unlikely.

“Yes Jed, an angel of the lord appeared before me and told me a tale of great joy. A son will be born this night on this very island and he will be a king of kings, the messiah, the chosen one.”

“On this island? But there’s no hospital, no facilities, where will the mother have her baby?”

“The empty house Jed. The child is being born in the empty house. The angel said that we should go and pay homage to the new-born saviour.”

“Homage? But surely the son of God will be visited by kings, princes, the wisest and richest of men. What place will there be for us, lowly gepherds as we are?”

“God is giving a son for all mankind, it is not only the rich who will be welcome in his kingdom. We should take gifts Jed, for the new-born infant.”

“Gifts? Gifts suitable for the king of men? I struggle choosing presents for you, I have nothing fit for royalty.”

“We could take a baby geep, or an article of knitwear.”

“A baby geep? Think about it Alun. The empty house will soon be full of gold, jewellery, frankincense, myrrh. We’re just going to look ridiculous turning up in our work clothes brandishing a goat-sheep crossbreed and a scarf.”

“We have the backing of angels Jed, the backing of angels. Believe me God wouldn’t have gone to all that effort to contact us if we were going to be turned away at the door for our lack of bling and fancy.”

Against my judgement I was persuaded. Leaving our geep in the care of the gods we went down to the empty house, with nothing bar a bucket of geeps milk and a geeps-wool jumper, probably the worst Christmas presents ever. We didn’t even have time to wrap them.

We expected to find a throng of men massing around the shrine of the new-born king, and to be turned away at the door by a heavy guard, but when we arrived the empty house was silent, as if empty.

We knocked, but upon receiving no answer we opened the door and went in.

Once inside, the screams soon alerted us to the location of the mother-to-be. We followed them into the bedroom, where we found her naked on the bed, clearly in the throes of childbirth, but completely alone.

Luckily before becoming a gepherd Alun had been trained as a doctor on the mainland and was able to charge of the mother-to-be’s care.

“It’s all right,” he said reassuringly, “I’m a doctor. We’ll soon have the little one out. Is there anyone else here?”

“No,” she puffed.

“It’s Mary isn’t it? I remember you, you lived here as a child. I delivered you when I was a young medical student, my first birth. I’m glad to see you turned out alright.”

“Aaaah,” Mary replied.

“You just relax and do what comes naturally.”

I helped by fetching towels and water. As a gepherd I’ve delivered hundreds of glambs in my time and am no stranger to the blood and mess of childbirth. I let Alun take the lead though, it’s what he does best.

Eventually, after many hours of screaming, sweating and every other type of bodily excretion imaginable, it was over.

“Congratulations Mary,” Alun said, “you have a healthy little boy.”

I took the baby from Alun’s hands and passed his bloody, perfect body to the new mother.

“Behold the son of God, father of all men”, I said, but I was interrupted.

“Shut up and help Jed. It’s twins.”

“Twins! But there’s only supposed to be one redeemer, on Messiah, one leader of men.”

“Stuff doesn’t always work out the way it’s meant to Jed. Fetch more hot towels and water.”

I’m happy to report that the second child was safely delivered, another boy.

“I’m going to name them Jed and Alun,” Mary said, “after the gepherds who helped deliver them.”

“Are you sure?” I said, “the angel told you to call the boy Jesus.”

“I’m supposed to call the chosen one Jesus, but there’s two of them. I wouldn’t want to christen the wrong. If one of them is to become the Messiah I’m sure he’ll find a way to reach out to mankind.”

“He could always change his name by deedpoll when he’s older,” Alun said, “that’s what I did.”

xxx

Later that week the Big Headcount team visited the island to make note of our population. With five residents we met criteria to be listed as an ‘inhabited isle’. Previously, despite myself and Alun living here all our lives, the council had deemed the island ‘uninhabited’, though that had never stopped them sending us endless memos and orders and their numerous failed attempts to collect taxes.

Mary and babies were both doing well and we visited them every day. The father of the children had yet to make an appearance, except in the sense that God is omnipresent, and Mary could look forward to life as a single mother of two. Ironically, given the identity of her children, it would be the mainland churches in particular who would make her life hell in an age where single motherhood was seen as the worst of immoralities.

You should stay here,” Alun the elder said, “you shouldn’t have to bear the responsibility for raising the king of men all alone. Not to mention his brother.”

“Thank you,” Mary said. “I would like to stay. I’m sure I could make myself useful, milking geep and knitting geeps-wool sweaters. I could think of nowhere better to raise the Messiah than this island.”