And Bethlehem is the place where their path crosses with Mary and Joseph, who, like them, live on the margins of history, encounter God in a tangle of pain and joy, and are vital to God’s plan if invisible to everyone else.
Luke 2:6-20
December 24, 2024
Dr. Todd R. Wright
Our journey comes to an end this year in Bethlehem, the city of David.
Joseph and Mary have traveled a long way to get here – all the way from Nazareth because of a degree issued by Rome.
It was not where they wanted to be; it was where circumstances forced them to be.
Bethlehem is a long way from the corridors of power, but it is there that the birth occurs.
They are all alone, far from home, in a place that was far from welcoming, far from comfortable, far from family.
Sit with that for a moment.
As if in response, Luke goes on to tell us about some shepherds that were living in the fields, keeping watch in the night.
They too were lonely, far from the warmth of hearth and home, the comfort of family.
That was where circumstances forced them to be.
It was a job that needed doing – keeping the sheep safe from wolves and thieves – and they needed to feed their families, so there they were.
They are companions in misery with Joseph and Mary, but what do we know about them?
Three angles:
Scholars tell us shepherds were on the lowest economic rung – like migrant workers; religious folks looked down on them because they weren’t able to keep the purity laws; plus they were smelly!
In her poem, "Different Ways to Pray," Naomi Shihab Nye, whose father was Palestinian, has a stanza that captures the nature of shepherds as pray-ers:
“There were the men who had been shepherds so long they walked like sheep.
Under the olive trees, they raised their arms — Hear us! We have pain on earth!
We have so much pain there is no place to store it!
But the olives bobbed peacefully in fragrant buckets of vinegar and thyme.
At night the men ate heartily, flat bread and white cheese,
and were happy in spite of the pain, because there was also happiness.”
Then there is Lee Hull Moses, who suggests that the shepherds were like doctors or nurses, firefighters or EMTs, people she remembers her father praying for every Christmas Eve, people who were on duty “tonight and tomorrow”; people “who would keep watch through the night and into the next day, working instead of resting, ready to respond to the needs of the world.”[1]
During COVID we would have called them essential workers!
Taken all together, we get a picture of shepherds as people living on the margins, as people who seek God in pain and praise God in joy; and as people who we rely on even if we ignore them.
And Bethlehem is the place where their path crosses with Mary and Joseph, who, like them, live on the margins of history, encounter God in a tangle of pain and joy, and are vital to God’s plan if invisible to everyone else.
Lee Hull Moses sees them … and she wants us to see them too!
She takes her father’s phrase “today and tomorrow” and uses it to reflect on the moment:
“When does tonight become tomorrow? Is it the first breath of the baby? Or the moment when Mary wraps him up in the bands of cloth Luke so carefully describes? Maybe it’s the moment the angel appears and declares the good news. Maybe it’s the arrival of the shepherds in Bethlehem to see the child, or maybe it’s when they finally head home and the little family of three is alone for the first time. Maybe it’s the moment Mary gathers all these things and ponders them in her heart.
Is it the first glint of daybreak? The sun over the horizon? Maybe the stroke of midnight — but what is midnight if not a desperate attempt by humans to corral ethereal time? But on Christmas Eve — at the breath of the baby or the song of the angel — tonight and tomorrow become one.”[2]
Mary and Joseph welcome their child into the world as today turns into tomorrow. And when the shepherds visit none of them feels quite so alone. That’s the power of community!
Our journey this Advent has brought us to Bethlehem tonight. We come together as a community to stand with those gathered around the manger. We are…
completely unprepared for what God is doing and yet filled with hope, like the baby’s parents;
and amazed to be included and humming with joy, like the shepherds!
Like them we have a story to tell! And the world needs to hear it! Praise God! Amen
[1] From “December 24 and 25, Nativity” her reflection on the text for the Christian Century, 12/18/24
[2] Ibid
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