Holidays - Seasons Greetings!

Slowly, the angels floated across the sky and disappeared. The shepherds approached each other in the darkness and asked: “What did you see?” “Did you hear as I heard?” “Is it true that the Son of God has come to save the twelve tribes of Israel?” “You are sure that this is not the work of some evil Egyptian magician who would steal our flocks?” They babbled awhile, and one said: “Let us go over to Bethlehem and find out the truth about this thing the Lord has made known to us.”

Always, in times of crisis, the shepherds delegated a few of their number to guard the sheep. This time, in high excitement, they left in a group, confident that, in this moment of ecstasy, God would not permit their sheep to stray. They moved across the dark, grassy valley and up the sides of the hills, climbing and talking and wondering.

The older shepherds were certain that this was not a hoax. All Jews were good scriptural students and, because there were no common books, they memorized all their teachings about God. He had promised a savior, and the great one would come of the House of David. This would be Bethlehem. The aspect which mystified all the shepherds was that the birth of the messiah was undignified.

One could not imagine the Son of God being born in a stable.

It had been said by the elders that when the savior carne to earth, he could be expected on a great white cloud, sitting in august kingliness, listening to the trumpets and songs of hosts of angels surrounding his throne as he ruled over heaven and earth. Tonight, the angels seemed to be an afterthought. It was as though his birth had been so insignificant, so humble, that the angels had to come down to summon a few lonely men to go to the stable and worship him.

A stable? God? Could he not at least have been born in the great palace of Herod the King? Or perhaps in the Holy of Holies of the great temple of Solomon? A manger, the angel said. They understood the word. It meant a sort of trough out of which animals ate grain. It would have the sweet odor of old oats and barley, and the sides would be chewed and chipped. A salt cake would lie in the bottom.

The shepherds reached the top of the eminence and walked among the dozing pilgrims of Bethlehem, asking where the messiah might be found. Most of the men turned away from them in silence. A few asked what messiah; the shepherds asked if anyone had seen the angels. What angels? Some of the wayfarers were rude: they asked the shepherds if they had become mad through too much grape.

Abuse was not unbearable or new to the herders. They had known it before. Patiently, they continued their rounds, asking here and there and finally confining their questions to this: Where can we find a newborn baby in this town? Someone told them to try the inn. The innkeeper, exhausted with his labors, remembered the young man and pregnant young lady going to the cave beneath the inn.

The shepherds approached timidly. They moved down the path in their sandals, whispering. As they approached the lighted aperture, they crouched and coughed. Joseph came out. He studied them solemnly, without rancor, and the leaders told him that they had seen angels in the valley, and one angel had said that a messiah had been born this night in the town of David. They had-well, if it wasn’t too soon-they had come to worship him.

Mary heard, and told Joseph to permit the men to come in. Joseph had some tools in his hand. His spouse told him that the nights would be too cold to permit the infant to travel until after the circumcision. They would have to continue to live in the stable for eight days. Joseph had gone into town and awakened a carpenter and explained the circumstances. Now he had tools and, with the permission of the owner of the inn, he was using sides of stalls to build a small, almost private room for his Mary and baby.

The shepherds came in, the cowls down off their heads.

Their hair was long and ringleted, the beards trembled with murmured prayer, and the hands were clasped piously before their chests. In the flickering yellow light of the oil lamp, they saw the child-mother, seated on straw. She was looking over the side of an old manger. The men lifted themselves a little on their toes to peer over the sides. Inside was an abundance of white swaddling clothes. An aura of light seemed to radiate from it.

Without looking up, the mother knew that they were trying to see her precious baby, so she stuck a finger into the white cloth and pulled it away from the infant’s face. The men looked, with mouths open, and fell to their knees. They adored the baby, and thanked him for coming to save the nation. They recited some of the formal prayers. Joseph, standing aside, was amazed that so many strangers now knew the secret.

The shepherds were tom between wonderment and happiness. This little baby was God and the Son of God, but he was also a helpless, lovable infant. Their hearts welled with joy and the stem; deeply bronzed faces kept melting into big grins, which were quickly erased as the sheep men recalled that they were in the presence of the King of All Kings.

The scene in a chilly manger warmed by the bodies and breathing of the animals, was, to the shepherds, closer to their hearts than if the messiah had come on a big cloud with trumpeting angels. They understood babies, and they understood animals and they murmured with delight that God would see fit to come to earth in an abode only slightly less worthy than their own homes in the hills.

They remained kneeling, clasping and unclasping their hands, and staring at the face of the infant, as though trying to etch on their memories the peaceful scene, the tiny ruddy face, the serenity of the mother, who, by the grace of God, had her baby without pain. They were men of such poverty and humility that their colored thread-bare cloaks spoke more eloquently than their tongues. Their adoration came from full hearts.

If there was any wonderment in Mary’s heart, she did not show it. After a while, the shepherds stood and, in the manner of the Jews, apologized for intruding. They addressed their remarks to Joseph because to speak to Mary would have been immodest. They asked Joseph if he had seen the angels and he said no. They related all that had happened to them in the valley. Joseph shook his head. Mary nodded toward the sleeping baby, as though she and he alone understood that this was only the first of many great world events.

The shepherds left, praising God, and in their joy awakening people to tell them that the promised messiah had come. Everything, they said, had been revealed exactly as the angel in the sky had said it would be. Most of their audience ordered them to go in peace. Thus, if one can say that the place of birth was small, humble, a place of animals and odors, then one can also say that the first apostles were the most humble and scorned of men.

Bethlehem lay sleeping in oblivion of the most tremendous happening that the world had known. Sleepy unbelief and scorn met the sheep-herds, as they went from door to door, crying their quest:

Where was He that was born, Christ the Lord?

Young men answered lazily that all sheep-herds were fools. Old men cackled sharply at them, berating them. They were told to go back to their flocks. Who was keeping the sheep upon the hills, that they who were paid to watch might thus disturb the night rest of their employers? Let them go back to their sheep. Perhaps the sheep were even now being stolen. Who knew but these faithless ones were in collusion with the robbers and had run away to leave the sheep at their mercy?

They had seen a vision? Had heard angels?

They had slept and dreamt, like the worthless fools they were, while the sheep fell over precipices! Let them go back and count the sheep.

The Christ! Christs were being born everywhere in these days. Did not every young woman that saw a star, or dreamed twice in succession, proclaim her son to be Shiloh!

Let them go back to the sheep. If any were missing they would pay well for it.

Thus did Bethlehem-blessed with a miracle that would make men forever love her name-receive the news of her calling.

The sheep-herds were but men, ridiculed and scoffed by other men who must be wiser than they. They ceased to cry aloud and exult in the glory of their tidings. Brave men ride smiling into the grip of death. Good men are gentle and true in the face of adversity and treachery. Wise men are silent under criticism and blame. But not good men, nor wise men, nor brave men, can glory in the face of laughter and chaff.

These men did not doubt. They were not shaken.

They had seen the glory of God and their ears had heard the voice of His Angel. They had been given a sign. Their quest was sure. But they went silently now, following the sign. They had not been wise to ask of the rich ones or the great. Their sign had pointed them plainly to a stable. Probably it was the back part of some poor man’s house that had been meant.

Perhaps among the strangers, who had come to live with relations in the city for the days of the numbering, the child was born. Yes, it would be among the poor. For the poor have always many relatives and many children are born to them.

So they went silently through the ragged, choked parts of the little city, looking for a manger in which a new born child was laid. But there seemed to be none such, for all the people slept and there was no vigil in any house, as would be in the house of their search.

Had they passed the place, in darkness? Surely not.

The Christ would not be hidden from them. They had a sign. But they had gone through all the village now and there was no child.

Hold! One saw a light. It was a light which their eyes knew. It was of the same light in which they had seen the Angel of the Lord. Out of the very hillside it seemed to come.

First they ran, then walked slowly, then held back urging each the other forward. Now their quest was sure, for this was beyond doubt the light of the Heavenly vision, but their knees trembled and their feet were timid on the hillside; for fear was upon them so that they hardly dared move, one before the other.

It was the house of a poor man whose kinsman had come from afar to remain during the days of the counting. And because the house was already full this kinsman was abiding in the stable. The matter was very plain. Just so all Bethlehem was housing its poor relations during these crowded days.

Fearfully, their tongues stilled, their souls awed, the men came into the half circle of light on the open side of the stable.

They saw a young Mother, in whose eyes the light of God shone through tears turned to joy, resting upon a pallet of straw.

They saw a man, with the stoop of toil in his shoulders, leaning over the manger.

They saw in the manger, the Child.

The Light revealed it to them. The Angel at their side whispered it in their ear. As they knelt adoring their own lips said it-It is Christ the Lord.

The King had begun the founding of his Kingdom in the hearts of the lowly of earth.

Unto them good tidings of great joy were brought! Not to the embattled castles of the strong of the earth; not to the busy gathering places of many men; not to halls of learning nor to the cloisters of the wise came the good tidings. Rather it fell like the rain upon the wind-swept, parched hills.

Into the clods of earth the breath of the good tidings was breathed. It opened the ears of dumb beasts to the voice of the eternal Shepherd. It fell, like the ripening sun, upon the hearts of men, bursting the burrs of earth that had held them and bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit of God. Never more could those men return to be the dumb, insensate men who followed dumb, insensate sheep. Their ears had heard the words that ring, from Eden to the Valley of Judgment, the Promise of Life!

Which shall be to all the people.

These few stuttering men upon the hills could not contain the good tidings. The hills and the mountains were not wide enough for it. The rocks would burst into speech of it. To every heart in all the lands in every time was the message.

The posting relays of Rome carried the word of a man by the Tiber to the ends of the earth with all the speed that flesh and blood could endure. The shrieking wind bore news swiftly from land to land, by the sea in ships. The ages would find other and yet other means to encircle the earth with news. But these good tidings to all the people should outstrip them all. This message leaping from heart to heart of all the world would draw the hearts of men together until it had welded them all into the one great heart of earth, beating to the measure of this good tidings.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior. With their senses still bathed in the supernal vision, their minds still a blank to all but the glow of light about them, their newly awakened souls leap to the word of the Promise. In the hearts of these men now, hearts which till now had been but lumps, surges up the longing of Israel for the coming of the Lord. Into their eyes comes the straining, expectant look of all the holy ones of God’s chosen. Father and priest and prophet and all the patient little ones of the long, long waiting come peering now through the eyes of these few. The souls of Adam and of Abel, the souls of Abraham and of David rose into the souls of these and exulted in God.

And the soul of the whole waiting world, the soul of those who fainted and were weary in hope deferred, took heart of life and believed in that hour forever. And the soul of the world unborn, looking timidly forward out of chaos, understood that the world before it was a world of light and hope.

Which is Christ the Lord.

Not any savior was this that was born this day. Not a king, nor any prince of the house of David who would lighten the burdens of Israel: not a leader this, who should fulfill the plans and hopes of aspiring men: this was Christ, the Lord God!

Their souls understood the saying. Their hearts leaped to it. But their senses could not comprehend, for this was a thing to which the senses did not reach.

Then the Angel of the Lord, seeing the bondage of their senses, took pity upon them; for their minds must have a sign.

And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

Thus was bridged the gulf between the sight of God which was to their hearts and the senses of men which ever wait feebly and lamely upon a sign. A sign was given them by which their senses might come to the God lying in His manger. Thus could they find Him.

And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will!

The triumphant chorus of Heaven breaks through the circle of the senses. Ears and eyes to which a sign has been given are miraculously attuned and focused to the soundless, invisible wonder. The dead earth springs to quick, pulsing life and is set vibrating to the music of Heaven.

Then the swelling, exulting diapason, to which all Heaven and earth rang, rolled on toward Bethlehem.

The darkness fell back upon the hills. The dumb beasts went on in the beaten ways of their instincts. Men stood peering dazedly into a redoubled blackness.

But those hills would never again be the same hills that had lain an hour before in their sere and unrelieved bleakness. That wonderful anthem of glory to God and joy to men-the only music of Heaven that ever was heard on earth-consecrated and shed a halo upon those hills forever. So long as the race of man inhabits the earth the hills of Bethlehem shall ring to the music of angel voices. With its last breath the world will sing that song of those hills.

Nor would those men be ever again the same. Through the curtain, they had seen the unspeakable glory of God. Their ears had listened to the very tones of Heaven, praising the Most High. Never would they be again as other men, moved by the common things and thoughts of life. Their souls had lived a moment in Heaven. Never would that vision leave their eyes. Never would sound or sight of earth be able to thrill their hearts or put wonder in them, for they had passed through the supreme, the illuminating experience. Neither death nor eternity, itself, would have a greater thing to show them.

Now that the choir of angels was gone from them, the sheep-herds found tongue. Each man was sure that he had seen and heard, but he was doubtful that such a thing could have happened to his neighbor. The straying sheep were forgotten while men ran together, comparing, questioning, piling wonder on wonder to each other.

But a sign had been given! When the veil of darkness had fallen before their eyes and the curtain of silence had again cut them off from the presence of Heaven, the sign remained with them.

In Bethlehem the Lord was born, this night! By the sign they would find Him-wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger!

They must hurry over to Bethlehem. These great tidings would not wait. They must be the first to adore the Christ.

Running, now striving to outstrip each other, now crowding timidly together, for fear was still upon them, they raced down from the hills and across the little plain to the slope where Bethlehem lay.

But they seemed to have forgotten the sign. They did not run looking for stables, where mangers would be. Human nature had come back upon them. Instead of following the sign, they ran knocking at the gates of the rich and the great ones. The habit of their servility told them to look among these; surely He must be born among these.

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.