Advent Calendar – 16 December
Nativity Stories: Shepherd
Totally brilliant! Best night of my life! You should have seen it – this guy floating in the sky, and so bright, like he was all lit up from the inside. Amazing! Not going to lie – it was frightening at first. The real scary deal. Most nights nothing much happens. We make a fire, keep a look-out for wolves. The sheep let us know soon enough if they catch a whiff of one out there in the dark. But this was genuinely creepy. Thought it was a nightmare but it didn’t go away. Danny and Ezra saw it too. Danny got the rod and started waving it around. It was funny – he looked so puny. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so scared.
Then it spoke to us. It was loud, as if it was coming from the whole sky. Like my grandpa’s voice from across the fields when I was a kid. It said, “Don’t be afraid.” Must have seen right through Danny and his stick-waving. We didn’t say a word. What do you say to a heavenly creature, “How’s it going, pal?” I just kept looking up at him, couldn’t tear my eyes away. The sheep could have wandered off to Jericho for all we’d have noticed.
It was religious stuff he told us. Things you only hear in synagogue, not that I go every week. Went a bit as a kid, holidays and all, you’d always come home to nice food. Couldn’t really understand what the rabbi said, reading out old-fashioned words from the Torah. But the guy in the sky said stuff I could understand – brilliant stuff, how everyone was going to be happy from now on because a new leader had been born. We don’t pay much attention to who’s in charge – they’re all the same, fat guys in fancy clothes. It doesn’t make much difference to us, as long as we make enough on the sheep to survive and have the odd skin of wine. But this sounded amazing – a new leader who’d be the Lord himself, just been born down in the town, a brand new baby. I tried not to laugh. I remember when my sister was born, she couldn’t do anything except eat at one end, and let it out at the other. It didn’t sound right, God himself a baby at his mother’s breast!
Then it got really mental. More light, more creatures up above our heads, more singing about peace. Next minute they were gone, and the moon and the stars were still there as if nothing had ever happened. The silence was weird. It was me who said, “Let’s go down and find this baby.” The sheep would have to look after themselves for once. We found the place all right, we guessed they’d be at Rachel’s, and there he was. He was so beautiful. Just lying there, not knowing anything going on around him. His Mum was so young, just a girl, but she smiled the most amazing smile at us, and we told them what had happened, and they all said it was awesome.
Anyway the guy said his wife was tired so we took the hint and legged it back up the hill, singing all the songs about the Lord we could remember, and hoping we hadn’t lost any of the sheep.
Christopher Ruane, The Nativity (part thereof)
Yours,
Donald
Revd Dr Donald MacEwan
Chaplain