Signs and Glory

Have you caught your breath yet? We’ve all been running flat out to get here—piling up the lists, filling the calendars, and saying yes to more than we have the capacity to meet. Because that’s what you do during this hectic season. But why? Why do we fill ourselves with so much during the season of watching and waiting? Why do we run from the moment we wake until we fall into bed exhausted from our too many efforts? Is it to convince ourselves that we can fill our emptiness? Is it an attempt to silence the voice inside that asks questions we don’t have answers for?

On the other hand, maybe you are one of those for whom the busyness has passed. And now the loneliness of daily existence, the empty chairs at the table, the silence in hallways, is what defines you, even in this most wonderful time of the year. We might feel unseen or unknown this season. We might feel, well, like a shepherd.

There are many different ways of viewing these characters from this most precious story on this most precious night. They usually get cast in our descriptions as outsiders. Some of us used to think they were lazy, relaxing in the fields, dozing and drinking, time on their hands. We aren’t the first to think that of them. That’s why they were considered unclean. They were rough characters, kept from proper worship and proper interactions with the “good people.” When Luke tells us that the people were “amazed at what the shepherds had told them,” we rightly think about the wonder of the story itself. But the added ingredient to their amazement was the source of the story. It was the shepherds who told this story. The shepherds who, according to them anyway, got a voicemail from God—no, a direct message, better than a telegram, a visitation. A manifestation. An angel, a whole host of them, singing and dancing in the heavens, about a baby in a manger. Uh-huh. Just what did they keep in those leather flasks all night long anyway?

I’m sure that is what went through the minds of at least some of those hearing this tale. These are shepherds, after all. But what if we’ve been a bit unfair to the shepherds? I read a commentator some years ago who said we should see the shepherds as small business owners. Theirs was hardly the only occupation that had to deal with ritual uncleanness; those rules were almost impossible to keep. Indeed, some in the business were disreputable characters, but what business doesn’t have its share of disrepute?

Maybe the issue was that they were busy. Luke doesn’t say they were lazing about in the field. He says they were keeping watch. It was an important job. Someone even speculated once that perhaps this was not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill flock of sheep, that maybe this was a group of the Temple lambs, raised spotless, unblemished so they would be worthy of sacrifice. It seemed likely that, in Luke’s mind at least, this was symbolic, that the announcement of the child born to be the perfect sacrifice would be announced with full angelic accompaniment to those who were keeping watch over the sacrificial lambs. Keep watch, says the child grown into a man, for you do not know when the day will come. Maybe he remembered the story as he said that—the story his mom told when he was little, and he sat and soaked up every word she said—the story about that night after a long trip to Bethlehem, the night when the stars seemed brighter than they do today, the night when a manger was the only refuge from the dark and the cold.

The night they came, the shepherds brought with them the smells of the animals in their care. They told anyone and everyone who would listen what had happened to them, how they were keeping watch, doing their job, worrying about the predators and the hazards out there in the darkness, worrying about how they were going to get the sick ones to eat and the angry ones to live in peace, worrying about the fluctuations in the price of Temple lambs and how they used to make a good living but now they were just getting by. They were worrying about how long it would be until their next day off, when they could go and see their families and wash the smell of sheep off for a little while at least, when they could pretend to be just like everyone else.

And then the sky exploded. They thought their hearts would stop beating in their chests. They thought it was the end of the world. They thought they would never hold their little babies, kiss their wives, or laugh with family again. They thought all their mistakes were returning to trip them up, all their failings, doubts, and brokenness. They thought what the villagers thought of them would be their legacy. They thought they were doomed to disappear into the dark like those in the ghost stories told around the fire in the middle of the night, when they are trying to keep one another away because the wolves are prowling.

As quickly as these thoughts raced through their minds came another.” Fear not,” the voice spoke in their heads without having to go through their ears. Good news. They heard or felt, or just somehow knew. To you is born a savior. To you. “Us?” they thought. “Surely not, maybe to the ‘good’ people in town, maybe to the priests and leaders, the rich and powerful,” they thought. A sign to you, a babe wrapped in cloth, lying in a manger. Now, mangers, they understood. Mangers were their business, their language. Mangers and saviors seemed to make some odd kind of sense to shepherds.

Then the song began, and what a glorious song it was. It brought tears to the eyes of these rough and burly men used to the hazards of the wilderness. It made their hearts light, their minds rest, and their hopes soar. It was glorious. When it ended, they didn’t dare breathe for a long moment. When they did, they looked at one another, hoping they weren’t the only ones to hear this message. But they could tell by the look on each face that it was real, and it was theirs. “Let us make haste,” they said. They made room in their busy schedules; they made their way, breathless and hopeful, like Moses and the bush; they turned aside to see.

What are you keeping watch over? What will you make room for? Into our midst has been slipped a present. No, a presence. Something beyond us and yet within us. Something from someplace alien to us, and yet our true home. Something that is so unlike us and yet is what we long to become. This Something or Someone is like us, is in us, and yet is still far from us. And that gap wounds us, that distance is an ache we need to soothe, a wound we need to heal. Sometimes, we lash out in anger or frustration because we are not whole, because we are hurting, and it feels like this world is what is keeping us from healing. We look for someone or something to blame. We cover ourselves with stuff, activity, and going and doing, so we won’t have to think anymore. Because when we do, we think of what is missing. We think of what isn’t ours. We think of the sadness of our soul.

Then suddenly. I wish I had a better way to describe it. I wish I had a formula for making it happen, a three-step process to bring peace, a four-word code to fill the hole in your heart, but I don’t have one of those. Because it doesn’t come from me or from you or from anything you can do or stop doing. And that is the glory of it. That is a gift. A presence. It is not something you earned, but something you are offered. It is not something you made but something that just might remake you. And there is nothing you must do.

Except listen to the angel voices. Except look up into the immensity that is the universe in which we live. And believe. Believe that it is for you, for us, for the family of God, the community of faith, the body of Christ. Trust that someday, maybe someday soon, maybe suddenly, peace will come and enfold you; it will bring you home. And your calendar will be just as full, but it will be full of peacemaking, peace living. It will be full of love and joy and peace. That is the glory, and you are the sign.