I just got back from an absolutely wonderful trip to Israel and I really want to tell you about it.

Almost 3 months it took, but it was well worth the time.  Candace, the Queen gave me permission to go - in fact, she was quite eager that I should go and visit Israel, as her predecessor had done almost a thousand years ago in the time of King Solomon.  Some of the jewellery he gave as gifts at that time are still among the treasures I take care of for her majesty.

Travelling with a large group of officials and servants is always slow, and 30 days had elapsed before we saw the walls of Jerusalem.  Sitting atop an area of elevated country, a characteristic yellowy brown marks its walls.

Our accommodation had been arranged beforehand in the area where Romans and other foreigners lived.  The Jews do not like visitors to be too close - even visiting dignitaries.

Discussions and meetings filled much of the next two weeks.  Senior Roman administrators and army officers entertained us hospitably, although the governor of Judea himself was busy in Caesarea and could not spare the time.  Realistically, the mere treasurer of a queen of Ethiopia is not all that important anyway, but I knew she would not be pleased when I returned.  I could picture her lips pursing tightly and her fingers drumming on the arm of her throne as I reported this - possibly, I could gloss over it with other, more flattering details.

The chief priests of the Jews were quite eager to see me - I think money is always an attractive subject to them.  The Queen had asked me to deliver some carefully chosen gifts and to make enquiries as to whether there were any cultural exchanges which could be arranged.  Diplomatic discussions are mostly couched in fulsome terms and almost-commitments are often made without any intention of ever bringing them to fruition.  The chief priests were eager to accept the gifts, but not so eager to take any concrete steps towards an ongoing relationship with non-Jews.  Nevertheless, it was a busy time, and I hope that my queen will be satisfied with the outcome.  Written tokens of appreciation were given and received, and maybe some future benefits will come.

For me, those things were all the necessary but tedious activities, and I was glad when they were over and I could concentrate on my real reason for coming to Jerusalem.  Don’t get me wrong, I do hope that my nation can forge closer ties with Israel, but the chief reason is the God of Israel.  My reason for making this long and difficult journey was to worship the God I want to claim as my own.

God’s temple in Jerusalem is a truly beautiful and enormous edifice skilfully formed in marble and gold.  The worship he requires is even more beautiful - and demanding.  The God of Israel is a living God, vastly different from the gods of my homeland and it was his living work that attracted me.  The gods my extended family worshipped were not the same.  Too often they seemed to have be created by people with the characteristics of spoiled children.  Inconsistent, trivial, arbitrary, greedy  and utterly self-seeking, these gods did not impress me.  Constantly squabbling amongst themselves, the gods of my homeland, of Greece or Rome or any other nation are, if anything, worse than the people who worship them.  The God of Israel stands alone, not just head and shoulders above the others, but rather as the only living God, who walks over the useless idols of these so-called gods.

                                                                                   

As a young lad, my father used to take me to the river Nile and we would sit quietly and watch.  My father was fascinated by birds, and he wanted me to be too.  Sitting quietly in places where shrubbery and trees hid us from the birds, we could often see them doing things that few would ever see.  We saw their care for their young, watching them as, at times, they sat utterly, astonishingly still on a nest while people or animals walked within arm’s reach of them, but never saw them.  Brightly coloured birds with plumage which shone in the sun and made a stark contrast with the surrounding vegetation; these we saw, yet they were completely invisible so much of the time despite their brilliant markings.

Yes, it was birds that convinced me that there had to be a creator who was greater than the wide range of gods worshipped in my country.  I saw a creation which reflected a single controlling force.  I did not see any evidence for a collection of “special-interest gods”, said to be powerful in only one geographic area, or in one aspect of nature. - and often portrayed as squabbling like delinquents with other equally petty minor deities.  No, creation convinced me of a single god, one god who had created everything.  Not only that, but, given the selfish and destructive nature of human beings, the creator must still be in control for life to continue as it does.

My father was an important official, called later in life to the court of the queen, and he found peace and comfort in the time he spent watching birds.  In observing nature, he too had found a conviction that there must be a creator.  Being well educated, he had heard the myths and legends about Solomon, and one of the common threads through all the stories was his belief in one God.  Only one.  Of course, these stories were told with overtones of a cultural superiority which showed sympathy to Solomon for his lack of understanding of religious matters: “Poor old Solomon, wise beyond words, they say, but even he didn’t know the gods as we know them - even our little children know more than he did.”

My convictions were otherwise.  Having watched the feathers of birds spreading out, wider and flatter until gossamer-thin as they slowed to land ever so softly on the wind-ruffled water, I had perceived God in his creation.  I also saw him in the sudden lunge of a tern, judging to perfection the flittering movements of a hapless insect on the surface of the river - plucked up and swallowed in an instant, leaving never a splash to mark its passing.  And this God I recognised in the words of the ancient scrolls, brought back from Israel by our queen so many centuries before.  Loving kept, but rarely read by those who did not want to know him better.  My father had read them, read them with love, and when his beloved birds convinced me too of the God of Israel, he contrived to give me the same opportunity.

King Solomon’s scribes had been very busy during the queen’s visit.  The Book of the Law of Yahweh had been copied out in Hebrew and presented to the queen, but that was not all.  Another scroll had been written in our language, translated by the expert scribes of Solomon whose knowledge of languages was without parallel in the world.  Over the years, copies had been made by expert scribes, updated as necessary to reflect the changes in our language - our words and script have changed over the centuries as all languages do.  The most recent copy is still at least two hundred years old, and only a determined reader can discern its meaning.  My father had led me through its lessons, and so in far-off Ethiopia, the laws of the God of Israel had gained another disciple.

                                                                                   

Worship was my goal.  My problem was that I was a eunuch.  All young men serving in the queen’s palace are eunuchs.  This has been the rule for many generations - they cause less trouble that way.  My father was not been called to the queen’s service until after I was born, or else I would never have been born.  

In the law of the God of Israel, I found that men who had been injured in the private parts could not enter the assembly of God.  Did that include me?  After studying the words used for quite a while - this was important to me - I decided that I couldn’t be sure.  It might.  It might not.  Greater expertise with the original language might help, and so my quest to go to Jerusalem began.

It had taken several years, but finally I was ready to set off for Jerusalem.  I could hardly wait to see the temple of the God I worshipped, and I hoped beyond hope that I would be able to offer my worship inside its courts.