The Least of These

In the village tucked against the rising slope, a gray jenny named Mara began each morning with the same dull ache in her bones and the same knot of dread in her chest. The sun had not yet touched the rooftops when her owner, Hadar, stomped down the ladder from the family’s upper room.

His temper always rose before the light did. He yanked open the lower-room door where the animals slept, the cool dawn air spilling in.

A larger, stronger male donkey, Barak, stood closest to the feed trough, ears forward, already nickering. Mara kept her distance, knowing Hadar never spared her a moment’s thought beyond the work he expected.

Strength, after all, meant nothing to him. Barak was a breeding animal, a source of future profit, and Mara was simply labor.

Hadar slapped a rope halter onto her head with more force than necessary.

“Up,” he barked, giving her a shove toward the courtyard.

She stumbled, caught herself, and moved forward. Her ears flicked back, but she dared not hesitate, because hesitation brought pain.

Outside, a wooden cart waited, its wheels worn, its frame warped from years of hard use. Mara knew the route it would take: up the steep hill toward the village center, the ascent so sharp that even Barak strained under half the weight she usually carried.

But Hadar never hit Barak. He saved his frustration for Mara.

He loaded the cart with amphorae of oil, stacked sacks of barley, and added bundles of firewood until the whole structure groaned. Mara felt the pressure before she even leaned into the traces.

When she tried to shift her weight, the cart barely budged. The hill stood ahead like a taunt.

Hadar snapped the goad against her flank, once, twice, then again harder.

“Move, you useless creature!”

The sting burned across her skin. Mara jolted forward, hooves digging into the loose stones.

The cart inched, then slid backward. Another strike. Another. Barak stood in the courtyard watching, ears angled sideways as if unsure whether to feel pity or boredom.

Each morning, Mara followed a grim rhythm: she lunged, pulled, strained, slipped, and endured the lash. Hadar cursed the incline, cursed Mara’s stumbling, cursed the stubbornness of donkeys as though the problem lay in her nature and not the weight he forced her to bear.

Villagers sometimes watched from doorways or wells, their eyes lingering for a moment before they returned to their morning tasks. A donkey’s suffering was familiar. Expected. Hardly worth comment.

When Mara finally crested the hill, lungs heaving, sweat streaking her dusty coat, Hadar rarely acknowledged her effort. He steered her toward the marketplace.

There he would unload the goods, making trip after trip into the stalls while leaving Mara hitched to the cart, sides trembling from exertion. Flies gathered along the welts on her flank. She flicked her tail, but exhaustion made even that movement slow.

By afternoon, Mara found herself walking to the mill. The cart’s contents gone, Hadar had new tasks for her: hauling grain, turning the rotary millstone, or carrying bundles of wood back from the outskirts.

Sometimes, Barak came along, but he carried lighter loads and spared the whip. He was too valuable to risk injury. Mara, on the other hand, was expendable.

When she lagged in the heat, Hadar’s patience thinned. The goad struck again.

The blows came not from cruelty for its own sake, but from a hardened frustration, one that saw animals only as tools that failed too often. Mara did not understand the reasons behind his moods, only the pain that came when she could not match the expectations forced upon her aging body.

By evening, when the sky softened into gold and shadows stretched long across the village paths, the pair walked home. Hadar tossed handfuls of barley and straw into the trough.

Barak shouldered forward eagerly. Mara followed, but more than once a shove from Hadar or a kick of Barak’s hind leg sent her stumbling sideways.

Sometimes she waited until the others finished before she dared approach the feed. When she finally ate, the food felt like relief.

Her body trembled from exhaustion, with each breath a slow effort. Later, she lay down in the courtyard, legs folded beneath her, the sting of the day still throbbing across her skin.

The nights were quiet. Only then did Mara find a fragile peace. But the dawn always came quickly, and with it the steep hill, the heavy cart, and Hadar’s impatience.

She bore it all with silent endurance, because that was what donkeys did. They carried the burdens others cast upon them, even when those burdens were heavier than they ever should have been.

Mara’s days had fallen into a rhythm of burden and blows, each sunrise marking the beginning of another climb up the steep hill from Hadar’s house to the village center. She no longer expected gentleness. She no longer expected ease.

Her world was work, weight, and the sharp sting of the goad. But on one cool morning, as winter pressed close and the village hummed with talk of the Roman census, everything changed.

Hadar was sweeping the courtyard when a young couple approached the gate. The woman leaned heavily on her husband’s arm, her swollen belly revealing the nearness of birth.

The man’s face held the weary determination of someone with too few choices and too much responsibility.

“Peace to you,” the man greeted. “We’ve traveled far already. We need a donkey for the last stretch. My wife cannot walk much farther.”

Hadar eyed them, calculating. Barak stood tall and strong behind him, far too valuable to sell.

But Mara, battered and aging, was another matter. If he could make a full price on her, he would lose nothing and gain much.

“I have this jenny,” Hadar said, giving Mara a brisk tug forward. “Good worker. Strong. Reliable. You can take her for the price of a young male.”

The couple exchanged glances as the man’s brow tightened.

“That price is too high.”

Hadar shrugged.

“Then walk. But the roads are crowded. The hills are long. And the Romans don’t wait.”

The woman placed a hand on her belly and drew in a quiet, strained breath. The man turned toward her, concern deepening in his eyes.

She gave a nod, resigned, hopeful, and tired. The man reached into his pouch and counted out the coins.

As Hadar shoved Mara’s rope into the man’s hand, she braced instinctively, expecting the first sharp blow of the day. But none came.

The man’s grip was firm, yes, but steady and without anger. He stroked her neck once in reassurance, as though greeting a companion, not a tool. Mara blinked, uncertain.

They began the familiar ascent up the hill, but this time there was no cart behind her, no tumbling weight, no creaking frame threatening to roll backward. The only burden she carried was the young woman, whose slight frame perched gently on her back. Compared to the sacks of grain, the grinding stones, the amphorae of oil, compared to the whip, this felt like nothing at all.

Mara’s hooves found the stones easily. She climbed without strain, her breath steady, her muscles loose for the first time in years.

The man walked beside her, matching her pace, his hand lightly on the rope as though he trusted her to choose her way. The woman murmured soft thanks each time Mara shifted beneath her to keep the ride smooth.

The village slipped behind them. The hill gave way to an open road.

And Mara found herself walking farther than she had ever been allowed to go, past the fields she knew, beyond the terraces she had plowed, toward new lands.

She did not know who these travelers were, only that their gentleness felt like a balm. No one shouted. No one struck her. No one pushed her aside.

When they rested, the man offered her water before he drank himself. When the woman dismounted, she laid a hand on Mara’s flank, gratitude in her touch.

Night came, and they stopped near a small town crowded beyond capacity with those answering the census. Every inn was full. Voices rose in argument; doors shut in their faces. The woman’s breath grew shallow, tight with the pain Mara recognized in the animals who gave birth in the spring.

At last, someone directed them to a stable behind an inn, no room inside, but at least a shelter. The man guided Mara in, tying her loosely near the hay.

The woman sank onto a bed of straw. And as the night deepened, Mara watched.

She saw the flicker of lamplight, the rush of urgency in the man’s movements, the final groan of labor. She heard the first cry of an infant breaking into the world.

The baby’s wail softened as the woman held him to her chest. The man knelt beside them, tears shining in the dim light.

Mara did not understand the words they whispered, nor the wonder that seemed to fill the small space. She only knew the moment felt different, deep, still, as though the whole world was holding its breath.

Later, the man glanced toward Mara and smiled.

“You carried us well,” he said softly. “You carried Him.”

Mara lowered her head, feeling a peace settle over her that no lifetime of labor had ever given her. She did not know she had borne witness to the birth of Jesus, the Savior of the world; she only knew the burden she carried those days was lighter than any she had ever known.