“And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”
A striking feature of the Nativity story in Saint Luke’s Gospel is its focus on the shepherds. More than one commentator has remarked that Luke disposes of Our Lord’s birth itself in one verse: “And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”
And then he immediately switches to the shepherds in the field. Something miraculous happens that first Christmas night, but it’s not the birth of the infant Jesus. We often speak of the “Virgin Birth,” but the real miracle there has happened nine months previously: the Virginal Conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary, which we celebrate on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation.
No, the miraculous event of the first Christmas does not directly involve Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The canonical Gospels give us no reason to suppose that anything takes place other than a normal human birth. The miracle involves instead the shepherds, who receive a supernatural announcement of that birth.
Luke sets the scene by describing the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night. During the past four weeks, in the Church we’ve done our best to practice the Advent disciplines of watching and waiting, because the Word of God typically comes to those who stay awake and watch, albeit not always in such a dramatic form as to those shepherds.
The annunciation to the shepherds follows a fairly standard biblical pattern. An angel appears to them, and the glory of the Lord – the supernatural light of God’s presence – shines round about them. As in almost all such biblical accounts of appearances of heavenly messengers, the shepherd’s reaction is one of sheer terror. Angels are frightening to behold. And so the first words of such heavenly messengers are almost invariably, “Fear not,” or “Be not afraid.”
The angel proceeds to deliver the announcement: “I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people …” Here, Luke uses the same verb “to bring good news” that will later be translated “preach the Gospel” when he is writing of Jesus and the apostles. The angel’s message thus inaugurates the Gospel proclamation of the good news of God’s salvation.
The angel continues: “For to you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Here the angel’s proclamation takes a form resembling that of a herald announcing, say, the birth of an heir to the throne of an earthly kingdom or empire. But the three titles – Savior, Christ, and Lord – signify unmistakably to the shepherds that this birth is none other than that of Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, the anointed one of God.
Then the angel gives a sign. In the Bible, the purpose of signs accompanying announcements from messengers of God is to provide a means of verification, so that the recipient may know that the message is true, and not a hallucination or deception. For the shepherds, the sign shall be “a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”
The key point to note about this sign is that it is simultaneously unremarkable and yet distinctive. Without having heard the angelic announcement, onlookers and passersby in Bethlehem might not think anything much of the event itself: an infant born to a traveling couple in makeshift lodgings with a feeding trough converted into a makeshift cradle. So long as the child is warm, wrapped up in his swaddling cloths, there’s nothing to worry about.
At the same time, however, the sign is sufficiently distinctive and unusual that when the shepherds see it, they cannot but recognize it as what the angel told them to look for. So, we have an event, and the announcement of that event. The event and the announcement stand in a relationship of reciprocity to each other: the announcement interprets the meaning of the birth; and the circumstances of the birth verify and confirm the contents of the announcement.
And the third element in the story is Luke’s account of the varying reactions of the different characters to what they’ve heard and seen. Here we have the opportunity to reflect and ask ourselves with whom in the story we identify most.
The first reaction is that of the multitude of the heavenly host, who break into a song of praise: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased.” This song is the first Christmas carol; and every year when we sing the hymns and anthems of the season, we are, in effect, joining in the never-ending angelic chorus praising Christ’s birth.
Then we have the shepherds. Their immediate reaction is obedience to the message: they make haste into Bethlehem to see this thing that the angel has made known to them. And once they find it, they make known the angelic message to everyone there. Luke describes the reaction of those who hear the shepherds’ testimony as one of astonishment. Finally, having completed their mission, the shepherds return to their flocks, praising God for all that they’ve heard and seen.
The final reaction that Luke describes is that of Mary, the child’s mother. She keeps all these things in her heart, pondering them. Some commentators suggest here an implicit contrast with the shepherds, who return to their daily lives and work, and are not heard from again. In this way, perhaps, Luke is holding up Mary, rather than the shepherds, as the truest model of Christian discipleship. Even though she doesn’t yet fully understand the deepest significance of all that has been happening, she holds on to it, stores it all up, and muses on what it all might mean.
As we celebrate Christmas, perhaps it’s tempting to join in the seasonal festivities, to sing the carols, to exchange greetings and give gifts, and then forget all about it until the same time next year, and the year again after that. Perhaps that is what the shepherds did when they returned to their flocks – carried on with the rest of their lives as if nothing had happened, save for occasionally remembering the strange proceedings of a winter’s night and perhaps wondering whatever became of that couple and their babe in the manger ...
But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. We do well to follow her example. If some aspect of our celebration of Christmas touches you this evening, or in the days to come, even if you don’t understand all at once what it all means – nonetheless, don’t let it go. Hold on to it. Ponder it in your heart. Who knows how it may grow, and where it might lead?
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