Dusted by the travel, a stranger walked down Wad Al Rahib street, hoping to find a hospitable home in which to talk about his Christmas experience. From a poorly lit porch, Isaac called out.

“Hey, stranger, welcome to Bethlehem,” Isaac called out and the stranger cheerfully accepted the invitation.

“You new in Bethlehem?” Isaac asked. “We are the proud city of the birth of Christ. What’s your name?”

“I’m Luke,” came the reply.

“Luke who?” Isaac inquired.

“I’m Luke – I wrote the book on the first Christmas. It’s all in Chapter Two.”

“Oh, you’re the person who reported that angels appeared to shepherds and sang about peace on earth – what a joke.”

“No, Isaac, it was true.”

“But the world hasn’t seen a day of peace since the angels appeared,” Isaac argued. “Look at the mess in the old country – Jews and Palestinians killing each other without mercy or guilt.”

“The angels were only singing the music God gave them. It was His hope that peace was possible,” Luke responded. “Apparently, humans never agreed with Him.”

“I suppose you heard what happened to the shepherds…maybe you didn’t,” Isaac reported. “When they got the word from the singing angels, they left the dogs to watch the sheep and headed for Bethlehem to see this miracle.”

“And then they appeared at the manger to honor the newborn king,” Luke added.

“Well, no, that’s not what happened,” Isaac countered. “As they passed Burble Ridge, a camel driver came galloping, shouting “It’s black Friday in Nazareth. Everything is marked down 50 percent.”

“This was too much for Nazarenes,” Isaac explained. “They turned out by the scores to take advantage of the bargains, forgetting that they had really come to honor the babe in the manager. Black Friday has become more important than the babe since you wrote Chapter Two.”

“You mean that the shepherds forgot about Jesus?” Luke asked.

“The shepherds never made it but some wise men came from a foreign land to worship the new king,” Isaac continued. “They first went to Herod the Great and asked about a new king.”

That ruffled Herod’s poise. He had just murdered all of his close relatives to keep them from stealing his kingdom.

Herod noted the bags of strange contents and asked one of the more gullible of the wise about them.

A Wiser III (the lowest job description among the wise) said the bags had frankincense, gold and myrrh, all to be given to the new child.

Herod thought to himself: “These immigrants are trying to smuggle drugs into the country – that’s all immigrants ever do. I should throw them to the lions but I’ll leave them to Herod in the Kingdom of Tex where he has put razor wire in the river to slash up these miserables.”

Herod wanted to catch them red-handed so he conspired with the wise men to do some fact-finding and report back to him.

They were not called wise men as a joke. They were wise enough to know that the Herod boys were up to no good and left the country in a different way.

Needless to say, this ploy enraged the paranoid king. In retaliation, according to Isaac, Herod the Great outlawed immigration and Herod the Lesser was ordered to shut down all Welcome Wagons and arrest any wise men who claimed to be innocent fact-finders.

Luke was in shock. There was no peace on earth and the people were more impressed with black Friday and glitz than a babe born in a manager.

“Isaac, if this is Christmas, I’ll have to rewrite Chapter Two of my Book,” Luke concluded.

A tear ran down his cheek as he headed back into the dusk on Wadi Al Rahid Street.