Reader Writes - December 2020
My Dearest Sara, This is your shepherd Isaak, writing to you from the Judean hills with strange news! Just two nights ago I was keeping watch when it was cold and silent, and I felt a great joy at the blackness and the brightness, the unreachable mystery of the stars. As I sat by the dying embers, a great light appeared, a shining beyond all shining. The others woke up. An angel appeared before us, and we were struck dumb with wonder. Then the silent night somehow split asunder and heavenly fire and praise came streaming in. This Judean world was suddenly rolled up like a scroll. Miracles broke out and our minds went wild. The dogs sang, eyes sparkling. Wolves howled far off. Deer came up and stared. The sheep, well they never moved, not a bleat, just a wrinkled muzzle and a twitching ear.
The angel gave us an extraordinary message: “I bring you tidings of great joy that will be for all people” - All people he said! Does that mean Persians and Greeks and Celts and Ethiopians as well? And he went on - “A Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord, and you will find him wrapped up in an ox's manger”. Could this really be the long awaited Messiah foretold by the prophets? Didn't God promise we would see a great light, that a child would be born to us, and the government would be on his shoulders? Suddenly the night was filled with a vast choir of angels, and ecstasy filled our hearts.
Somehow God led us to an inn; and in the stable we found the child, wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger, just as the angel had said. It was still well before dawn but a great commotion had broken out amongst the animals. As usual God's creatures seemed to know something. A cock crowed for all it was worth, an ox lowed, the inn's shaggy dog stood up on its hind legs and yarooed, and a donkey brayed and brayed and brayed. Bright angelic light seemed to settle on the spot; men and beasts alike had caught celestial fire. What more could we do but fall on our poor knees and pay homage, speechless with a dammed up joy? The mother lay by the manger; all was well and very well. All was blessed and overflowing with God's goodness. No props for this drama but the wild excess of the human heart and wisps of straw and angelic light; Immanuel, God with us. So we were first on the scene, we very rough and poor men of the fields more used to sheep and dogs than the mystery of the universe and God's plan to visit us.
The angel told us, and I believe with all my heart, a Saviour has been born to us; he is Christ the King! The Word has come to dwell among us, full of grace and truth. This is the light that the darkness shall never overcome. This is the King of kings, the ark to lift our lives above the flood, the man to walk for us to the lonely hill. “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to mankind on whom his favour rests.” My words have emptied me. We are returning, you and I, to the garden where we belong. Amen, Amen, Amen