One On One: 100 Days With Jesus--ADVENTSample

Shepherd--Part 1: The Ones who Were Told First 

You’ve heard us tell our story; I doubt I could add anything new. I deny none of it. If we didn’t all see the same thing, I would have thought we hallucinated it. Bad wine. Midnight visions. 

The night we saw the spirits in the sky marked my life. He found me there in the darkness an angry and confused young man. I say He found me, when really, we found Him just as the spirit said we would, a newborn in a trough. A poor couple who looked as hopeless as we did. She was my age. Her firstborn, by the looks of her. 

I was barely 13 with little in my future except to do what my father and uncles   did—tend sheep. I hate sheep. And this flock on Migdal Eder were to be sold on Temple Mount for sacrifice. They had about as much hope as I did, a Jew trapped under a Roman boot. 

Ama said she worried for me with all this anger inside. Abba, may he rest in peace, said he'll work it out as young men do. She feared I would become a zealot, what with the unrest flaring up around our troubled land. 

What were we to think when the spirits announced, “Good news”? Like Caesar’s birthday called “The Good News?” Like Caesar, who wanted us to worship him as “Savior of the world”—and call his heir, “the Son of God”? We had to bow to Caesar and call him, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” and if you didn’t bow they impaled you on a stake until you died. 

Do you see why the spirit’s message confused me? They filled the night sky with such light—and then they were gone, like smoke into the heavens. 

Are we still alive? I first thought. What just happened? Then I heard my father singing and laughing, “Get up brothers; on your feet! Let’s go, David! Didn’t you hear what he said? We’re going to Bethlehem!”

My father, may he rest in peace, never got over that night. He talked about it to   everyone who bought a lamb from him in the temple. He told the sheep when no one else was around. “I saw the Messiah,” he would say. “We followed the angel’s direction until we found them in a birthing stall—the three of them nestled together in lantern light. Such a place for the Messiah to be born!” he scratched his beard. “Had the angels not told us, we would have missed it. But they told us! Can you believe it, messengers from the Almighty (bless His holy name) kibitzing in the field with shepherds! Good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people! Yes, all people—but do you know who they told first? Us!” And he would put back his head and laugh, “They told us!” 

Yes, my father died a happy man. 

But I lived a haunted life. Disturbed by questions that never got answered. Was that baby the Messiah? How could He have been the Savior—he looked like any other baby. In all the years since, I’ve been troubled by the beauty of that night in such a dark time. He found me, alright. And I’ve been looking for Him everywhere since.

Tomorrow: One on one with what could have happened