C
oals from the campfire glowed hot and red from yellow flames recently fallen. A bright flicker still spurted here and there settling softly among the embers. Still the fire cracked, sending a spark flying. The air adorned pleasantly with the smell of burning cedar. Lemuel hugged his thick wool cloak around his shoulders, his eyelids drooping with approaching sleep. Stars hung above with uncommon presence against purplish black velvet. Lemuel however, was not thinking about stars. His head nodded with thoughts envisioning the lovely Sheililah. He thought of her eyes, her golden hair, the fullness of her lips and just as his thoughts began to consider the rest of this quean beauty, Ahiam spoke . . .
“Umph!” It was loud enough to open Lemuel’s eyes and twitter his heart. The first thought of a startled shepherd is . . . An attack! His hand reached with automatic practice for his staff. But it was not an attack. Ahiam, who was not preoccupied with blood-surging dreams of Sheililah, was taken rather with what appeared to be an anomaly in the heavens. His exclamation sounded as if the breath were knocked out of him. No alarm amongst the sheep, Lemuel’s second thought. An eerie incandescence enveloped them. It was not soft and glowing. It was bright and abrasive. Gleaming. Frightening.
Young Jesse, a mere boy, emitted a high-pitched wail. Lemuel stared at him, agitated. Veteran shepherd that he was, he felt his presence of mind slipping. He thought he might urinate. The fourth member of the group, Elieazar, began to flee. Unheard of among shepherds. Shepherds have been known to die protecting their flock. Eleiazar suddenly stopped, confronted by an apparition which nailed him to the earth. His muscles could not work. He froze where he stood.
Lemuel had seen just about everything his profession had to offer. He had confronted and defeated predators of every description, animal and human. Lemuel was not easily awed by events around him. There was the time for example, when a drunken centurion attempted to make sport of him. The officer had drawn his short sword as if to decapitate him. Lemuel stood straight, galvanizing the man with his eyes, almost daring him to strike. When the blow came, Lemuel caught the soldier’s wrist with his hand and held it as if in a vise. Then abruptly, he laughed. The officer’s colleagues saw the humor of the circumstance and also laughed. The embarrassed soldier desisted and lowered his sword. Lemuel was not a man of whom one easily made sport.
This light however, jolted him. He did not rise to the moment with detached coolness. He too, was afraid. His stomach recoiled in a wave of mild nausea. Perspiration wept through trembling, clammy skin. What he saw was totally unknown to him — indeed, unknown to all living men.
The “apparition” that had so arrested Elieazar emanated a brilliance that permeated this theater on the hillside. It was human in appearance, and yet inhuman. A man. A creature. A source of unimaginable light. After a moment of silence, it spoke . . .
“Do not be frightened.” Despite his appearance, despite the supernatural tension of the moment, his words were soothing. If it is possible to go from intense fear to calm expectancy in an instant of time, it happened in the terror-stricken hearts of these peasant shepherds.
“I bring you good news of immense joy.”
Joy is the result and the essence of a love fulfilled. It is one of the many reasons for the gift of life. We may count it useful or productive to live one’s life in the service of another, or of God. This is another reason for the gift of life. But it is the simple things of joy, the smile and laughter of a grandchild, the lifting of a cloud to the heavens, the smell of jasmine, the announcement of a birth — all of these also, are reasons for life and living.
“What is this news? For whom is it intended?” The words struggled to emerge from Lemuel’s mouth. Despite his emotional overload, somewhere in the background of his consciousness lurked the question, “Why is God’s angel bringing news to humble, unknown shepherds?” Why indeed? Why does God invest himself in the statistically insignificant? With the whole of Creation from which to choose, why choose earth? From among all the peoples of the earth, why choose a tiny sect called Jews? Why choose Abraham? Moses? Elijah? Why choose a slight youth to slay a threatening giant? Why choose Bethlehem? Why does God, as he moves events among men, have the perversity to make small men large, and large men small? Why this delight in the small, the insignificant? Is it because he is attracted to humility, and put off by the proud strutting of human arrogance? God holds sway over the heavens. Men of power and influence have no power or influence with him.
This is perhaps exciting news to the disenfranchised, the governed, for those whose lives are dramatically affected by the whims of others. But that is hardly the point. It could be argued that the impoverished have stronger character, are less pretentious or full of themselves. Alas, the character flaws, pretentiousness and pride of the poor is as ubiquitous as among the rich.
It is, nonetheless, a fact that pain is greater among those without the resources to make life more pleasant. Suffering is more prevalent. Babies die quicker and more often. More violence and murder. Hunger. The feeling of being in need, greater. The struggle for survival more intense. The malaise of will and determination more understood. More of their lives spent in prisons. Though many cry out against the terrible Fate that decreed their poverty, God is still more readily received among such people. They seek him for they have discovered that mankind does not love them, does not know what to do with them. They have no place else to go. If God does not help them, they will perish. Of course, the verdict of the affluent and sufficient is that these pathetic creatures need a God. They invent something or Someone larger than themselves, larger than anything they know in order to help them survive in a competitive world. Poor things. That is obviously why their God favors them, is it not?
Lemuel however, could not think beyond Why? For him there was none of this insufferable pedantic reasoning. He was afraid.
