December 23, 2013
The Fourth Week in Advent

Yesterday Phyllis and I got into the car and made a few Christmas shopping stops before getting back home in time for our church's Christmas Pageant dress rehearsal.   I usually do the narration--the Christmas story from Luke and the prologue of John--but by 5 p.m. yesterday I was coughing with the symptoms of a Christmas cold and my voice was wearing out, so Phyllis did the narration for me as I sat in the back and watched the tangle of shepherds, kings, and angels sort themselves into the nativity story.    There is a considerable amount of energy being expended by American children in these last days before Christmas, but there is also something good about having that energy filling the church.  This pageant has been performed here since 1942 on Christmas Eve, and so these kids will also someday look back on this activity as an important part of their own Christmas memory.

Of course, the nativity described in the Bible probably wasn't like this version of it.  There was no rehearsal, no warm sanctuary decked with greens and bows, no crowd gathering promptly at 5:30 on Christmas Eve to snap photos and watch the story unfold with adoration.   Among those who were present back then, there were no visions of sugarplums dancing in anybody's heads.    Jesus came into darkness and exhaustion, bearing an unlikely promise in a furious and desperate world.   Some of those who showed up in the stable that night were shepherds, simple men of the hillsides whose night had been interrupted by a startling visitation that left them "sore afraid." 

I think that you and I are the shepherds in this drama, not just an audience to an ancient pageant.   We tremble when our world is threatened with some change we cannot understand.  We are wary of fate's fickle twists and turns, because most of us feel like we are just barely hanging on as it is.    When angels enter the scene, we usually don't recognize them as benevolent--perhaps until long after our encounters with them we discover that the One who sent them has bigger, better purposes than we can understand.    We head off to Bethlehem, leaving our sheep--and our familiar life--back in the field.  After I watch the young shepherds traipse barefoot up the center aisle of the church, I will walk into the night and head for Bethlehem, too.

Just a Shepherd

When they come,
those angels I have imagined,
I would wear a white linen shirt,
and offer them a place to sit
before they had time to take wing,
all flame and flashing light
and wild words I could not understand,
breaking the wine glasses
on the well-set table,
setting the chandelier to rocking,
interrupting my peaceful world.
I am just a shepherd,
at home in a small corner
of a world too large for me.
You would come,
Mysterious Messenger,
before I could dress for the occasion.
You would find me out back of the barn,
or  at the drugstore buying cough medicine,
or in my safe bed, as I dream fitfully
and wait for morning.
You would say,
"Be not afraid."
And I would repeat that to myself,
even though I would be afraid,
as I high-tailed it to Bethlehem.

--Timothy Haut, December 23, 2013