Who will lead us to Bethlehem? Luke offers us some wonderful possibilities. Characters whose saintliness and ordinariness are so tightly braided we can’t turn away from them.
How about Zechariah and Elizabeth? Humble, devoted people. Well on in years, open to God’s possibilities. Struggling, but accepting blessed surprises. Surely, they could show us the way to Bethlehem.
How about Simeon and Anna? They’re old, too. This baby means the fulfilment of their devotion. It would be an honour to meet them. A greater honour to have them show us the way to Jesus.
Simeon, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Anna. Would we have patience with them? They waited lifetimes for just one sign of hope. We plug in the lights and switch on the music any time we want.
Maybe we need younger guides. People more in tune with us. How about Mary and Joseph? Would we dare approach them?
Two kids, frightened, alone in the world. Would they even hear us? We would overwhelm them. They were landless peasants from hillbilly country in Galilee. We’re sophisticated westerners, the privileged of the world.
We wouldn’t belong in Nazareth. We’d be better suited to Sephoris, up over the hill. We might hire a Joseph to build something for us. Or have a Mary wait on us at table.
Just a couple of frightened kids. What more could they say?
I think we’d lose patience with them. If they’re going to lead us into the story, surely they can tell us more than, “The word came, and we obeyed.”
Who’s left? John the Baptist? Do you think he’d have any patience with us?
The angels? They can be helpful, but they’re elusive creatures at the best of times. Every time they speak with humans, even if they have good news, there’s always trouble.
The Bethlehem innkeeper? He’s not in the story at all! He doesn’t appear until the first church pageant scripts are written.
That leaves us with the shepherds. Neither too old nor too young for us. Some of them are youths, and some of them greybeards. Some of them women.
Maybe we can meet up with the shepherds and they’ll lead us to Bethlehem. They won’t turn us away, or turn away from rich and powerful people like us. They’re in no position to shut anyone out.
Maybe we’ll be as shocked as they were. A good shock wouldn’t hurt us a bit! Good news! That’s what we need to hear. News of salvation! Salvation for all of us, “wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger.”
We could follow them to Bethlehem to see if the angels’ words are true. But at a distance. In a world full of scents and stinks, the shepherds’ perfume would be too much for us. Soil, sweat, drink and dung. What’s Luke trying to prove, making shepherds the first apostles of the manger?
John Calvin said it best: “Christ is revealed only to a few witnesses, and that at dead of night. Further, while God had at hand many of rank and high ability as witnesses, He puts them aside and simply chooses shepherds, of little account with men, of no reckoning … If we desire to come to Christ, we must not be ashamed to follow those whom God chose, from the sheep dung, to bring down the pride of the world.”
The shepherds will lead us and as we run after them we will understand that God is at work “to bring down the pride of the world.”
Maybe tonight we can catch just a little of the awe and the eagerness of those shepherds. We can move from watching to worshipping. Our knees may protest and creak. The posture and language of adoration may be buried as deep as our last childhood memory. But we can do it!
