Recently a friend relayed a very human twist to a Christmas program and it got me thinking. I realized that very often we deify every aspect of the nativity story, seeming to forget that the only thing truly holy was the child, the baby. So, I started studying Luke 2 and Matthew 11 and thinking about what might be there between the lines. Now, realizing that God’s hand is in everything I know that things happened just as they should, but that is the case for all of our lives isn’t it, and we rarely handle our situations with the aplomb and grace that seem to permeate the nativity story. Now, fair warning, I am not trying to be crass, just a little realistic, I may offend somebody, but you have been warned. There are so many aspects of the birth of Jesus that could be retold, but I chose to focus on the shepherds, it seems to me that it probably wasn’t as calm as the Bible depicts.
Luke 2:9 says of the shepherds “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord showed around them, and they were terrified.” Hmm, that seems pretty tame to me. Remember, later in Luke it says that the shepherds went and told others about all they had seen; this seems a little more realistic:
“You are never going to believe what happened to me and Jedediah last night. I am telling you it was the freakiest thing ever. So we’re watching our sheep, mindin’ our own when suddenly out of nowhere this guy shows up, and he’s glowing, I mean like someone stuck a lamp up his tunic, really glowing. So Jedediah leans over to me and says, ‘Hey man, you seein’ what I’m seein.’ I couldn’t say anything, I just nodded. Then this glowing guy starts talking. He tells us not to be afraid. Right, like a glowing guy appearing out of nowhere is a common occurrence, all I could think was, where’s my staff. Then he tells us that he brings us good news of great joy for all people. He says that a baby is born in Bethlehem and he is Christ the Savior. Man, I’m glad my parents made me go to Torah classes as a child or I would have never known what he was talking about. I was pretty convinced at that point that this guy was a few fish short of a catch, but then all of the sudden this whole group of these glowing guys shows up, and they start singing. Right there in the field, they're singing and swaying and making a big deal out of everything. It really scared the sheep, not to mention Jed and me. And then, just like that (snap), they’re gone. I look over at Jed and his eyes are totally bugging out of his head. But by now I’m a bit curious, so I say to Jed, “Let’s go check it out.” Jed agrees, but first we had to go get a change of clothes, those glowing guys scared Jed so much he soiled himself. So we head back to Jed’s house and then set out for Bethlehem. It wasn’t too bad of a walk, but the whole way I kept thinking, what the h___ are we going to find when we get there, this better not be some trick. But sure enough, we get to Bethlehem and we find the baby, right where the angel told us. (I found out later that’s what you are supposed to call those guys.) So anyway, we get there and there is this girl and a guy camping out in a barn, they must have been really poor, I mean, yeah the town was busy, but surely someone could have shown a little compassion at the sight of a few coins. Nope, there they are in this cattle stall, and there is the cutest baby you’ve ever seen, sleeping away in feeding trough. I’m convinced he is what those angels said. If you don’t believe me, go check it out. Jed and I just got back this morning. We’ve been telling everyone we know. Now, about that drink…”
