Those who know about the Herdsman children remember a Church where the Herdsman's dominated the selection process.
They came to the Sunday School only because they got free food, and theirs was a dysfunctional family. Most of the others quit the production, lest they become part of the worst Christmas Pageant ever...The young girl who played the Angel who appears to the Shepherds...the night the production goes on jumps up on a stool and shouts at the nervous shepherds 'FEAR NOT' at the top of her lungs, so forcefully that the Shepherds dressed in their bathrobes were terrified...
In the end it became the best Christmas Pageant ever...because of the humanity of the Herdsman children...I got to thinking today of that pageant, and the effect of fear in our lives - as I heard a Dr. explain options to me concerning a tumor! I wondered and thought of how fear paralyzes us being the people whom God has created us to be. The Shepherds WERE fearful when the Angels brought their news of great joy! Imagine Mary's reaction when the Angel told her that she was with child...
How they reacted to their fears speaks to me, perhaps to all people, in this day and age. Rather than allow the fear in their hearts to paralyze them, they used their emotions in a positive direction, and began their journey, allowing their initial fear to mobilize not only their bodies for the long journey, even more important their following the Star believing that God had something in mind...that would end up in the most unlikeliest of places...a filthy Manger behind the Inn...
My fears are sometimes founded in the uncertainty which clouds my days, unlike my need to believe that God has a plan, and this supersedes all other diagnoses and opinions... I wished that my Dad was here to chat with - but he isn't, having died a month ago today...and yet the Star which we have reluctantly placed in the heavens, and the Star which appeared to the shepherds, Magi, and a few others always shows us the direction on which we walk, and the strength not to allow those fears to leave us hesitating...
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Thank you, Dad, for sharing your thoughts during this advent season. We are so used to hearing the Christmas story, that we seldom stop to think about what it must have felt like to be one of those shepherds out in the field. The fear, the awe, the wonder--must have been overwhelming. Let us hear the Christmas story anew this year!
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