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Yes, yes, I remember. This was when Octavian Augustus was ruler in the Roman Empire and Herod the Great was king of Judea. Caesar sent an ordinance to conduct a world-wide, i.e., empire, census. Previously, there was a similar census during the reign of Quirinius, the governor of Syria. As then, the current census was based on the place of origin of the head of the family. So whoever was alive took his whole family and went to his place of origin, to his father’s house. Families made whole pilgrimages: wife, children, relatives … they all went together. But there was a confusion: some went this way, others the other way.
My grandfather’s family all the time lived in a small town near Jerusalem – in Bethlehem. So we weren’t going anywhere. It was to us that crowds of people came. We were very happy because our relatives from far away also came to see us. We haven’t seen them for so long. But you also had to do your job: we herd of sheep and goats, and at night we herded them to the grotto where the stables were located.
I remember … that night there was nowhere to herd the flocks. There were so many people in the town that they couldn’t fit into taverns. Some of them rented rooms in the hosts’ houses and even in the stables. With my friends, we sat by the fire and looked after the flock in the field near Bethlehem. We talked a bit about what was going on here, we joked, just to stay awake. We made sure that our flock did not scatter in the field.
Suddenly… what is this? what brightness? what a glow? I’ve never seen one like this. We got very scared. We were speechless. We all sprang to our feet, almost ready to run. An angel of the Lord stood before us and said, “Do not be afraid! Here I am announcing to you a great joy which will be shared by all the people: today in the city of David a Savior has been born for you, who is the Lord, the Messiah. This will be a sign for you: you will find a Baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. ” I haven’t had time to cool down yet, and here I hear a choir of angels, a multitude of heavenly hosts. They all glorified God with these words: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those in whom He is well pleased.” This glory of the Lord has enlightened us on all sides. And suddenly everything went quiet…
I started to wonder what this is all about. Yes, I remember: when my grandfather gave us the Scriptures, he said something about King David and Bethlehem, that he was his hometown, that he was a shepherd like us, that God chose him and commissioned Samuel to anoint him king of Israel. Grandfather also mentioned the prophet Micah, who announced the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem. Were the angels talking about him? Today the Messiah the Lord was born in the city of David? As a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger?
Well… we were all expecting the coming of the Messiah. But the Prophets foretold the King, the Savior of Israel, the Anointed One. Oh, I could use a Messiah who would lead the nation of Israel out of bondage. Still somebody appropriated him, still somebody else… now the Romans had taken the upper hand, and Herod had taken an oath of allegiance, he was a vassal of Rome and could not make any external or internal decisions without the emperor’s permission. And here a little baby is born … and laid in a manger.
These thoughts of mine lasted only a moment. I looked at my friends … and they too were full of reflection and reflection on what they saw and heard. We’ve talked many times about all these prophecies about the Messiah … I nudged my elbow next to my friend and told me to hurry over to Bethlehem and see what happened there. We quickly secured our herd so that it would not disperse, and we headed towards the city ourselves.
We didn’t get far. At the cave where animals were mostly kept, which belonged to my current hosts and situated on the outskirts of the city, there was a movement: various animals stood around the entrance and looked inside curiously, and some of them knelt on the front shins. We also decided to look inside. And… we all got down on our knees…
We saw everything that the Lord revealed to us. The baby wrapped in a swaddle lay in a manger, whimpering softly. His mother was sitting next to him, watching the newborn baby with tenderness. A man was bustling around, who came up to the woman every now and then and touched her shoulder, hair, and looked at the little one with interest.
At the sight of this I was speechless … So much warmth, so much kindness, so much kindness, so much love, so much kindness … Is it really happening? And this miserable grotto: so poor, only one manger preserved, only hay everywhere, dark and cold everywhere … And the glow emanating from the infant … Great joy was visible on the faces of these people. Joy and peace despite such difficult conditions and the hardship both related to the journey and the birth of a child. I felt so captivated.
I don’t know how long we persisted in such attitudes. I looked at the faces of my companions and got the impression that they experience what they see very much like me. Then a man approached us, and we got to our feet and alternately responded to him about what had happened to us while keeping the flock guard.
We talked about the proclamation of the angel of the Lord, about the birth of a Child who will be wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, about the joy that will be shared by the whole nation, about the birth of the Savior in the city of David, who is the Messiah, the Lord, and about those sung by a multitude of heavenly hymns and praise to God in the highest. We said that the Savior would bring peace to the people He liked and that we would see this joy and peace here in this Bethlehem manger among this family.
The man didn’t answer anything. He just smiled and nodded his head as if he knew it all. In the end, he only revealed that her name was Joseph, and that the woman who gave birth to his son was Mary, his wife. And the child will be named Jesus. He later returned to Maria and again supported her lovingly with his presence. The woman didn’t say anything either, but her face was reflective of what she heard from us.
We accompanied the family a little more and adored this newborn Child. But we were bursting with joy. You had to share it with others. So we went to Bethlehem, where it was already dawn. We told everyone we met about the appearance of the Lord’s angel and the Savior’s birth. We praised and glorified God for everything we had heard and seen. There was no end to the conversations and every now and then one of us noticed something new in what had happened to us. People were surprised at what they heard, they could not believe that the Savior came to earth in this little Baby.
I was especially puzzled by the fact that God chooses people to experience Himself and gives them peace. Why are we shepherds? Why me? I did not deserve anything special in my life. He lives day by day commending his life to God. I have no power and no money. Sometimes you don’t even have nowhere to wash properly. I try to help others if I can. I live simple and ordinary… sometimes I just talk to my colleagues about the great things that God has done. And here I was invited to the throne of God Himself….
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