Pastoral images of "shepherds keeping watch over flocks by night" - sounds a bit too poetic for genuineness. But what appears to be quaint today was completely awkward two millennia ago.

For those who know the birth narrative of Christ it remains a curious myth or a romantic novelette until we struggle with the authenticity of the text and the fidelity of its author.

For the Gospel writer St. Luke --who was both a physician and a historian -- it must've involved a fair amount of angst for him to record that the first witnesses of the birth of the Messiah were shepherds. Although shepherds were fairly common in ancient Israel, and even today shepherds are still found wandering in the land, Luke probably would've preferred that some other profession bare witness to the heavenly babe laid in a manger. Shepherds were indeed second-class citizens and were considered unclean by religious leaders, because they had to occasionally deal with sick animals, and daily remove dead insects from their sheep and goats which rendered the shepherds ceremonially unclean. But because Luke at the time courageously recorded the shepherds as the first witnesses, the account now bears the mark of truthfulness.

It is just like the Lord to choose the humble and outcasts to be invited into the inner circle of eternity.

When we examine St. Luke's document further, we realize that the "eyewitnesses" that he referred to as sources in the introduction to his Gospel may have very well included Jesus' mother Mary. The details of the birth include not only the clothing of the baby and his unique crib but also the emotions within the heart of the child's mother.

Luke was a friend and acquaintance of St. Paul, joining Paul on many of his missionary journeys and most likely doing some of his research while meeting the many Jews in the Diaspora of the first century. As any good writer knows, facts must be corroborated, sources checked, and the final work must bear up to scrutiny. The unique nature of the census of Caesar Augustus which required families to return to their village of origin was questioned even up until a few decades ago when a manuscript from Egypt was discovered referring to a precisely parallel census carried out in 119 A.D. The Romans required these registrations every 14 years, and ironically these may have been inspired by Augustus' recognition that far too many bachelors occupied the Roman Empire, thus jeopardizing the future of Rome. Augustus himself memorialized the census as his eighth most significant act of 35, all of which are recorded on two bronze plaques outside his mausoleum.

Were it not for this Roman edict, "Jesus of Nazareth" would have been born in Nazareth and not Bethlehem. This is significant because if He were born in Nazareth, an Old Testament prophecy (Micah 5:2) regarding the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem would indeed not have been fulfilled by Jesus. The prophecy in and of itself is potent, not only identifying the specific village of Bethlehem-Ephrathah, (there were two at the time with the same name), but also mentioning that the King Who would go forth from there, would have His origins in "the days of eternity." It was divinely fitting that this one who would later claim to be a king and "good shepherd" would be born in the village of another famous Shepherd-King, King David.

So when the shepherds who were "abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night" were directed to go to Bethlehem by angels, they were treading a path that had been worn by shepherds and kings before them. But Luke does not address one detail, and to me it's intriguing. Who watched the sheep? Some folks who write about these things say that the sheep were cared for by under-shepherds while the more senior shepherds went in to town. Another possibility is they went in rotation. A third is simply left their sheep, and went to go see something much more important.

This last scenario is unlikely. Many times shepherds owned their sheep and would not abandon their flock out of both devotion and economic self-preservation. But consider a curious parallel quote from Jesus, who later said describing the people this time, "they are like sheep without a shepherd...." Indeed, this is the whole point of the incarnation of Christ: the Lord was seeking to guide and protect His flock, a protection which eventually cost Him His life. Jesus would also say, "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." A theologian once said, "The cross and the crib are made out of the same wood."

But maybe the shepherds did something entirely different. Maybe they simply led the flocks right into town. Listen to the urgency about their task which Luke records, "Let us go straight to Bethlehem, and see this thing which the Lord has made known to us... and they came in haste...." As we make haste to the next laptop sale or iPod discount, Let's pause and ask ourselves, "Do I really need to carry all this baggage with me this Christmas?"

I hope our urgency is about seeing the King - and not acquiring things?


Rob Foote
Pastor - Trinity Lutheran Church, Ithaca, NY

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