The Star

At Whit's End, John Whittaker is behind the Imagination Station making final adjustments to his newest program, a Christmas story adventure. Connie is dressed and ready - after her last Bethlehem adventure, she has learned to come prepared - but Whit warns her that this is not the usual Christmas story, at least not the one most people expect. Connie is too eager to listen to warnings. As soon as Eugene arrives and adjusts his toga, Whit closes the doors and sends them off, asking only that they let him know how it turns out. As the ride begins, a voice recounts how Joseph and Mary have traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, how Mary has given birth to a son laid in a manger, and how on the eighth day the child was named Jesus. This adventure begins after the first Christmas night, not on it.

Connie lands alone in the crowded streets of Bethlehem, where a stranger pulls her out of the path of a runaway chariot. He introduces himself as Proclus and offers to help her find the family she is looking for: a father, a mother, and a baby who stayed in a stable at an inn on the north side of town. But the stable is empty. As Connie grieves over missing the family - and especially the baby, the most special baby ever born, who filled her with hope and joy just to look at him - Proclus quietly reveals his own sorrow. He had a wife and a daughter, a girl small in stature but powerful in spirit, much like Connie, and both of them died. Then Connie hears a familiar voice: Benjamin, the innkeeper she met on her last visit. Benjamin tells her the young couple left the stable weeks ago, moved into a house in town, and have now taken their child to the temple in Jerusalem to dedicate him to God. Proclus offers to bring Connie along, since he is traveling to Jerusalem that very night - with his Roman legion. Connie is stunned to learn her rescuer is a Roman soldier, a captain, and her wariness wounds him. Proclus reminds her that Rome's citizens do not all think or feel the same way, any more than her own people do, and Connie apologizes. Proclus admits he could never resist his daughter's pleading look either, and agrees to take her along.

Eugene, meanwhile, has landed far from Bethlehem, stranded and thirsty in a desert canyon with a ripped toga. A traveler named Gaspar finds him talking to himself and, with a pointed mention of the thieves who come out after dark, persuades him back to his camp. There Eugene - introducing himself as Eugenius the Thirsty - meets Gaspar's companions: Balthazar, the man who talks too much, whose ointment of herbs and myrrh soothes Eugene's feet, and Melchior, the expedition's sour-tempered guide, who says the journey was told to him by the stars months ago. When Eugene rattles off constellations, Melchior tells him to look up, and Eugene sees it: another star, a very bright star. He is traveling with the magi, the wise men, following the star to the child. But when Melchior announces that tomorrow will bring their journey's end in Jerusalem, Eugene protests that the child is not there - he is in Bethlehem. Pressed to explain how he knows, Eugene can only stammer about Mr. Whittaker and the Imagination Station and ask them to trust him. Melchior refuses. The star leads to Jerusalem, where a king of kings would surely live, and Gaspar, though fond of their surprising young friend, sides with the guide who has led them well so far. The wise men turn toward Jerusalem.

At the magnificent temple in Jerusalem, Proclus arrives to meet his new assignment: King Herod himself. An old man approaches Connie, insisting that today is the day, that the Chosen One, the King, is coming - and moments later Herod is carried in, croaking threats at his bearers. The old king takes an unsettling interest in Connie, even offering to buy her, before Proclus steers him toward business: the rabble-rousing in the city that concerns the Emperor. Left alone, Connie questions the old man, who says the Spirit of the Lord has led him to the temple courts this day to witness God's salvation. And then she sees them - Joseph, Mary, and the baby, who have just dedicated their son according to the law and are about to leave for Bethlehem. The old rabbi blesses the family with strange and solemn words: this child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, to be a sign spoken against, and a sword will pierce Mary's own heart.

Proclus overhears. Talk of swords and the rise and fall of Israel sounds like zealotry to a Roman captain, and when the old man declares the child will be Messiah - not only for Israel but for the world - Proclus names them his enemies and demands to know what he should do with this child. Herod shuffles over, scoffing that there is no Messiah and that the only way to peace is through Rome, the foundation of his thirty-year reign. Then, cooing that hundreds of babies have been born during his reign and none of them are Messiahs any more than this one, the old king asks to hold the infant. With Jesus in Herod's arms, he puts the question to his new commander: does Proclus honestly believe that this is the Messiah? The story is to be continued.