Who here had a role in the school nativity play this year? What were you ?
Do we have anyone who played the part of one of the shepherds? We heard about the reaction of the shepherds to seeing the angel with good news, Can you remember what it was? Yes, terrified.
It might be hard for us to imagine what it would be like to be a shepherd watching flocks of sheep at night, especially for those of us who have lived only in towns or cities. The shepherds had to protect their sheep from wild animals and thieves so kept alert to any small noise which could signal harm was round the corner. With only lanterns to light their way it must have been a strange and eerie landscape.
Now, it wasn’t by accident that the angels came to the shepherds. It is an important part of the story that they were the first people to hear of the birth of Christ. It shows us that the poor and people on the margins of society receive God’s good news like everyone else, in fact before anyone else.
If Jesus was born today in this city of London who might the angels visit first with this news? Perhaps a group of security guards working night shifts in the city, bored and indifferent to their work but having to keep a constant eye on the CCTV monitors. And what might their reaction be? Alarm? Fear? Should they call the police? Well, we hear in the account from Luke’s gospel that the shepherds were terrified. We might wonder why this was so. I think there are two reasons:
The first is because it was night and when it is dark all the human fears that lie deep within us can rise to the surface.
I remember reading a book as a young child about a koala bear called Frances, who wanted to stay up as late as possible and who, when sent to bed, would come down to ask for a glass for a water, for a story, anything to delay the time when she would have to be in bed on her own. Finally her koala parents lose their patience and insist she goes to bed and stays there. When they have settled her into bed she still cannot sleep and is terrified when she sees a stranger at the door. She screams (as only koala bears can) and her father comes in and explains that the stranger is not a stranger at all, merely her dressing gown hung on the back of the door which in the darkness resembles another bear.
As we grow up we become more rational and can see the shadows for what they are- illusions that seem to be dangerous strangers but which are in reality harmless. Yet still, as many parents know, we have anxieties that keep us awake at night or thoughts and fears that flit around our mind at 4am and stop us sleeping.
Part of being human is about living with fear- after all there are plenty of things in our lives today- such as the violence that exists within and between communities, the damage we are doing to our planet, the possibility of living without the people we love, and a thousand other things which means that at the back of our minds, we might have a sense of dread or unease.
In the reading from the OT Isaiah talks about this as a darkness and human beings as ‘the people who lived in a land of deep darkness’. He is not simply describing the Israelites who lived thousands of years ago but the normal state of being human in any period.
The second reason the shepherds are terrified is because they are confronted by the glory of God. When we are met by the awesome power and otherness of God it is only right that we, coming face to face with our own smallness, are terrified.
This particular terror that we experience when faced with something divine is described in the children’s book ‘The Wind in the Willows’. At one point in the story Mole and Rat have gone in search of ‘Little Portly’, a baby otter. As they row along the river Rat feels called by a music to a backwater which is the site of the Presence of the god Pan.
The author describes the moment when Mole is made aware of the divine presence of this god:
“All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still as he lived, he wondered.
‘`Rat!’ he found breath to whisper, shaking. `Are you afraid?’ `Afraid?’ murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. `Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet — and yet — O, Mole, I am afraid!’ Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.
Mole and Rat are at this moment a bit like the shepherds- they are experiencing a fear, which is not to do with the fear of being human but an awe which arises when we meet with God.
So there are two sorts of fear- a human fear which constrains and belittles us and a holy fear which frees us to be properly in relationship with God. A problem arises when the human fear- the state of being a people in darkness- leads us to build barriers between us and new experiences which lead us further toward the glory of God.
This human fear is natural. The shepherds could not know of the glory of God without first being reassured by the angel whose first words to the shepherds are ‘Do not be afraid’.
The words ‘Fear not’ are said to appear 365 times in the bible, that is once for every day of the year. It is as if we are constantly being told by God to ‘fear not’ because the darkness which we hear about in the reading from Isaiah is transformed through the love of God. A love which means he came and dwelt among us as a human being.
The shepherds, having being reassured and having been told the good news, go off in search of the Messiah. And when they reach Bethlehem there they are met by God but not a God who overwhelms with them with His otherness. Rather they are met by a young family with a dependent and helpless new born baby:
A baby who is God and yet who has come to share in the darkness of human life. Through God sharing our human lives he has transformed our human fear so that we are freed to experience the glory of God. Never again do we have to be a people living in darkness because, as Isaiah says, we you and I today and every day, have seen a great light. This is what the shepherds must have realised as they came face to face with the Christ child.
The shepherds “returned, glorifying and praising God”. So seeing Jesus means they are free to glorify God in the same way that the angels do. In fact, through their encounter with God they have become more like angels.
So today as we celebrate the birth of Christ let us rejoice in the freedom this brings and pray that we may follow the shepherds in glorifying God.
Sarah Eynstone