Story of a Shepherd Boy
Christmas Card, 2017
It wasn’t one of those heavenly creatures the priests would read about with two heads and three pairs of wings. But I still couldn’t look. It was like staring at the sun. His face lit up the whole hillside and what he wore must have been woven out of starlight. From the glimpses I got, the angel was a boy about my age, only enormous. What he said sounded older than he looked but I could understand that. On trips home after I first went to the hills, I would tell my friends the thoughts I had looking up on the night watch…
and they would just stare.
In the nights that followed I couldn’t see why the angel chose us. We’re not allowed to enter the temple anymore. My mother reminds me when I visit that it’s not because of me. It’s the sheep. They’re considered unclean once they start eating off the ground. She also reminds me that David was a shepherd before he became King and I always remind her before I leave to ask the priests how old David was when he wrote the psalm about the Lord being his shepherd. She tells me she forgets but I know it’s them. They won’t answer her. I was almost old enough to start asking them all my questions when my cousins appeared from the hills and said they could use my help. My mother said I’d still be her little king and I could ask as many questions as I wanted…
one for each star.
It wasn’t David I thought of that night. It was Goliath. The angel held a constellation that loosely outlined a sword and the star at its tip hung right over us and it wasn’t one we had seen before. He must have seen it frightened us. The first thing he said was not to be afraid because he hadn’t come with a sword but with good news. He didn’t seem to know any news that got to us up here was good. But he wasn’t good for the sheep. They scattered and that’s how we left them. We left them lost. We had never done that before but we also had never been told by an angel to visit a baby…
who had been born for us.
Babies frightened my cousins but not me. I went right up to it. There was a glow around its face. I figured it was just my eyes from trying to glimpse the angel. The father and mother didn’t look at me like I was crazy when I told them what we saw on the hill. They didn’t say anything and it didn’t feel like they needed to. It didn’t feel like any of us needed to say anything at all. And no one did. It felt like whatever needed to be said was already being said…
in the singing going on in the hills.
After nights of the angel not returning, my two cousins started to talk about leaving. They wanted to go look for the baby. I told them that was crazy. They were supposed to stay with the sheep like they taught me. I told them that night with the angel was different, but they said that’s what they needed. They needed the difference of that night, and that wasn’t crazy to me, not at first, not until they started standing out on the night watch reaching skyward like the priests would do after sprinkling the blood of a lamb on the altar. Were they asking for the angel to pull them up or were they planning to pull him down? I was more afraid for myself than I was angry with them when they finally left. What if…
I was the crazy one for staying?
It was good to hear on their first return that it wasn’t me or them who were the crazy ones. It was the story and its craziness didn’t end with the angel. They started at the stable and found it was part of an inn. The owner remembered them and even asked about me. He said they weren’t the only ones that came looking for the baby. Three other men came about a week after us and said they were kings. He said he believed them at first because they came from kingdoms he had never heard of across the Great Desert, and yet they could speak Hebrew. But that was as far as his belief in them as kings went. They started to talk about following a new star they had been waiting for and how it meant a king had been born, and not just any king. The gifts they brought were for a heavenly king…
a King of Kings.
Kings or not, crazy or not, the owner of the inn said it made no difference once the father handed him the gift of gold. He joked it was better him than the robbers on the road and he only stopped laughing to ask if they had heard about the infants being slain. He said the young family left not long after the phony kings, and not long after that word spread Herod had murdered all the baby boys in the city and surrounding towns. He said the soldiers hadn’t come out this far because the hill country is only good for taxes, not newborn kings. He pulled out the sac of gold…
and said Caesar wouldn’t see any of it.
He asked if they thought he was a crook but before they could answer he said he had invited the father to stay longer. He said they could come in from the stable and sit next to him and his wife at the head of the table, but they left with the baby in the night. He said his friend is the tax collector and later told him the young couple wasn’t married. They said he started laughing again and that’s how they left him, laughing to himself about Herod the Great fearing a Hebrew baby born in sin and asking, What, is…
the whole world going crazy or something?
It seemed the crazier the stories became the more hopeful they were the boy had been spared. They traveled as far as the city. The temple guards didn’t ask if they were shepherds. They were prepared to deny it because they weren’t planning to return to the hills. They said the plan wasn’t theirs and that confused me, but I was more interested in what they found confusing inside the outer courts. They said they didn’t remember it being a marketplace. It was now and not all the lambs being sold were lambs. Some were sheep. Anyone could see that from their teeth. It upset them. They told a couple of the sellers that sheep shouldn’t be in the temple, but they looked at them like they were crazy. An older boy waved them over to say the guards will let in anything for a price and people inside these city walls…
don’t care if there’s a difference.
They asked the boy if he heard of anyone seeing an angel. He laughed as he asked how far outside the walls they had come from. Hadn’t they heard about the High Priest who lost his voice and named his son by writing it in the sand? Some said he had gone crazy after not talking for months but others said an angel took his voice so it could name the child. He said there were other rumors of angels going around so they began asking and heard of an elder who lifted an infant to the sky before circumcising it and said he could depart this life now that he had seen the Lamb of God. They continued asking until they were certain the baby in the stable would be about…
the age of the boys in the stories.
They said I had become a good shepherd before setting off again. They had both lost sheep when first on their own and couldn’t believe I hadn’t lost any. They were happy to see I had help. Another uncle heard they had left and offered his son. He’s younger than I was but after his father left, he told me he’s always wanted to come to the hills. He hasn’t taken the night watch yet but it’s not because of him. It’s me. I fear telling him about the angel. I hoped he would ask when I said the fire needs to light up the sky like the face of an angel to keep the wolves away. But he just laughed, and his laughing made me laugh and it felt good to laugh, so I didn’t say anything. Why would he think the strands of light from all those stars are really loose threads ready to clothe the heavens on its next earthly visit? Maybe the owner of the inn was right, maybe the story of that night is making the whole world crazy…
and somehow my story is entwined in it.
The stories from those traveling at night no longer sound so crazy to me when they wander into the firelight, and watching over my nephew has scared away my fear of wolves. I find myself now telling him not to be afraid like the angel first told us and it helps him fall asleep, and once he does, I ask myself, if the angel is on our side like it said, then what is there for me to fear? And I know it sounds crazy but it makes me think…
what we really fear is not being afraid.
That was the crazy thought I had when I heard them running up the hill the other day crazier than ever, shouting over one another — We found him, found him, and the mother, him, they’re not far, and the mother, they’ll be here tomorrow, not far, he’s a teacher, be here tomorrow, he has hundreds, a teacher, of followers, hundreds of, followers. They were out of breath by the time they reached me and slowed themselves down by completing each other’s thoughts. We’ve been following him. Yes, we’ve been one of his followers for the past two weeks, maybe three. Yes, we’ve followed long enough to recognize who we thought was the baby’s mother. Yes, so we asked around until we found someone who knew she was the teacher’s mother, Yes, so it’s him. The baby became a teacher. Yes, and what he teaches is heard by many to be good. Yes, good news like the angel said. Yes, it’s just like the angel said and I know it’s crazy…
but it gets even crazier.
Some saw him bring a girl back from the dead and some said he even stops death from happening. Yes, he stopped a stoning. He asked the ones with stones to throw them if they were without sin. Yes, and they all dropped their stones. Who has ever taught like that? Yes, and who can stop hunger? They said he fed thousands from two fishes and half a loaf of bread. Yes, and someone remembered him asking a boy to go around and pick up what was left-over. Yes, they went from nothing to not worrying about having enough for tomorrow. Yes, we even heard him say that in one of his teachings…
let tomorrow worry about itself.
I asked them what they had seen for themselves and they said just this morning he waved for some children to come up and when the parents tried to stop them, he said everyone must become like a child to enter the Kingdom of God. The parents didn’t know what to think. The priests in the back shook their heads and waved for the children to go up and no one said anything. They said it was like that night in the barn. It was the difference they went looking for. But it’s not always like that. They said they’ve heard some in the crowd call him everything from a sinner to Elijah, from Satan to Messiah, and they said he’s called himself some crazy things too - the Bread of Life, the Light of the World. And another time he said he was The Good Shepherd and his flock would know his voice, and they said it was…
as if he was speaking to them.
They stayed behind today with my nephew so I could go listen and it was as crazy as they said. I’d never seen a crowd in our town before. There’s no inn but the followers didn’t seem worried about where they would stay. I never saw the teacher’s mother. I wanted to see her. It sounds crazy to say I wanted to see her as much as my own mother. But I could still see it was him even without seeing her. I could see everything he said. When he said he came with a sword but wasn’t carrying one, I saw the angel holding the constellation. And when he repeated what my cousins heard about needing to become like a child, I saw those words cut away the need for words. In the heat of day he created the difference of that winter night in the stable. My cousins weren’t crazy. They didn’t go looking for the difference. It had called them…
and now it was calling me.
The angel told us not to fear but the teacher taught us how. He said love drives out fear. He said all ten of the commandments are followed in his new commandment to love one another, and he told a story that showed the neighbor we were once commanded to love as ourselves didn’t have to be our neighbor. Now it could be anyone, anyone in need and I thought of how my mother used to say the commandments weren’t written to shame us but make us a more loving people. The teacher said love was how we become a child again, a child of God. But the more he spoke of love, the more questions I had. The angel didn’t talk about love and it looked to be my age. Angels or not, what do boys know of love? I had memorized the commandment to love my neighbor. But we don’t have neighbors in the hills. We have travelers…
searching for someone to listen to their story.
The teacher’s story of the person not caring who it was that needed help made me think of the sheep. I thought of the need to become like one of them. I thought of leaving home, of having to live off the land and of being considered unclean because of them. I thought of what it took not to lose any of them and I thought of the teacher. I thought of the ones who said they were kings saying he was a King of Kings, and I thought of what it took to leave the heavens and become one of us. I thought of how he was called a sinner in response to calling himself the Good Shepherd. I thought of how he always went on to the next town so none of his flock would be lost. I thought of my voice being heard as good news to the sheep after they’d scattered and I thought of my nephew. I thought of why he needs to hear about the angel and why I hadn’t told him yet and I began…
running back up the hill.
Like my cousins the other day, my thoughts were racing as I ran. I thought my crazy thought of fearing being afraid, of fearing who we might become. I thought of some fearing children and if I’d be feared as a child of God. I thought of the teacher being the child who was born for us, and of him becoming God’s love for us. I thought of God being love, and of being taught to fear God, and why love is something to be feared. I thought of listening to the travelers as loving them and of coming down today to listen as my own need to be loved. I thought of knowing the teacher’s voice as being loved by God, and of being in love, in love with the love God is, and all these racing thoughts of love became too much…
too much for me to know as a boy.
And like my cousins catching up to one another and completing each other’s thoughts, once the exhaustion of the day caught up to me, the thought of why I was running was complete. Was it out of fear? Yes, I was running in fear of leaving him lost. Yes, at first I was afraid he would think I was crazy but I’m no longer afraid of him scattering. Yes, because the story isn’t crazy. The teacher said love drives out fear. Yes, my fear of leaving him lost isn’t crazy. It’s love. Yes, I was running in fear and it was out of love. Yes, this is my story. It’s what I know of love as a shepherd boy. Yes, I know…
the love of the Good Shepherd.
Joshua Winant writes from a dirt road in the foothills of New Hampshire.
