Holidays - Seasons Greetings!

In the entire world there were no hills bleaker than that limestone ridge that formed the backbone of Judea. And of that entire ridge the sheep pastures were most bare. The desert itself was not more barren than these upland stretches, nibbled to the roots by the sheep in their hunger.

It was the time of the dying year, the sun just starting on his northward course. The out-cropping rock showed stark and white in patches larger than the spots of meager soil. Death might have claimed the country for his own, and might have proven the claim by the desolation of the land.

There was no life here. Not even the promise of life.

Men dragged out the lengthening chain of their days and nights at the heels of sheep. And the sheep merely protracted the process of dying.

Misery, naked as the hills, trudged soddenly about a business which, for want of a fit name, was called life.

The following of other men’s sheep is the most desolate and benumbing task to which men have ever been set.

Distance and poetry have put for us a nebulous veil of romance about the business of the sheep-herd, and called it beautiful. Reality makes it the most unprofitable, the most wearisome, the most stultifying labor of man. It requires no intelligence; only an instinct a little higher than the dog’s. Of the two animals who follow sheep the dog is the better trained, therefore more valuable. And, in the end, the business is thankless-the world knows that the hireling flies.

A moonless night, cold and black, lay like a shroud upon the hills. Not a light, not a sign of life, not a cry disturbed the curtain of gloom that veiled the country, from Bethlehem to Jebel Fureidis where the tyrant Herod had built his stronghold and his tomb. Only here and there a miserable, half-dad sheep-herd drifted hazily through the dark behind the straying sheep, a phantom man following phantom sheep through what might be an eternity of dark despair. And scrawny dogs ran weariedly, with no joy in the work, snapping listlessly at the noses of their stupid charges.

Other gaunt men lay sleeping, dreaming hungrily of food and warmth, waiting their turn of the watch, to arise and stumble hopelessly through another endless round of toil.

To awaken and beautify and gladden this grim, lifeless countryside needed the coming of God in His glory.

And what could ever strike the light of life and vision and of the spirit in these sodden, drifting figures of men?

They had souls, to be sure. Men do not even walk in life without souls. But their eyes were of use only to follow the vagaries of sheep. Their ears were tuned only to the yelping of dogs. They walked only as they were led by sheep. Heat, cold, hunger and thirst were the limits of their perceptions. Beyond these limits their experiences and their sensations did not go. Certainly they were not the medium to which God might entrust an overwhelming, world -astounding revelation.

But — Lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of God shone round about them; and they were sore afraid.

They felt the quivering flutter of a million wings upon the air. The earth trembled beneath them as though a giant hand had brushed it from its spinning course. The light that suddenly smote and drowned their eyes was the Light that came down from the Throne. The grave clothes of stupor and weariness and ignorance were suddenly stripped from their spirits, and their souls came forth to see the wonder of God.

They saw the tower “called Eder” ablaze in a glory of light, so that it seemed that the lightning had there found its home. They saw the dun, bare slopes and the jagged rocks spread with a golden carpet of light so that these became the hills of Heaven. They saw the whole air about them and the heavens above suffused with the glad, warm glow of an eternal dawn.

The winged glory of Heaven brushed across the face of the sodden, dumb earth, and gave it a living soul!

And looking up to the heavens they saw the pole of the heavens stand still, and saw the birds of the air stop in their flight.

And looking upon the earth they saw the rambling sheep stopped in their tracks, with their heads lifted up from their feeding. And they saw a sheep-herd’s stick lifted up to strike the sheep, but arm and stick remained fixed aloft and did not strike. For all things in that moment were turned from their courses.

Looking farther, they saw a dish of food prepared upon the earth, and men seated about the dish reaching their hands into the food. And they who reached did not withdraw their hands from the dish. And the hands that carried food to mouths did not do so, but stopped arrested in their way. And they saw a spring and goats about the spring, thirsty to drink. But they did not drink. And they saw dogs with their mouths opened to bay the sheep, and their heads raised to give cry. But the cry did not come forth it for was held in their throats.

Awe and a great fear held the men entranced as they stood. They would have thrown themselves prone upon the ground to hide their faces from the fear, but they could not do so for their powers were reft from them. Only their souls were alive in the Light.

Then the Angel of the Lord stood near them, saying:

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all the people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.