Last week’s religion column began the story of Eleazar, Moshe and Samuel, three shepherds working on the outskirts of Bethlehem. This second week concludes the story.

With the last sheep in, the shepherds ate their own meal. Moshe and Samuel close to the fire, Eleazar close to the sheep pen. They had run out of things to say on a night like this the first year they had worked together. But that was now three years ago. Joel bar Amoz had felt fortunate to find any shepherds willing to work with Eleazar, whose reputation as a demanding head shepherd preceded him with every shepherd in Judah.

Eleazar could her Moshe snoring softly by the time he pulled aside the brush and slipped into the sheep pen. They watched the flocks at night, but Moshe was still a boy of twelve and they let him drift off without reproach. They never discussed it, but, Samuel and Moshe knew that Eleazar watched the flock each night from their midst.

“It might be easier to keep tend the sheep if you stayed with them, but who wanted that?” Samuel had told Moshe more than once so that Eleazar could overhear.

Yet Samuel was not as bad as some of the men he had worked with. He might even make a good shepherd one day. If Samuel would just realize that a good shepherd is concerned not with the flock as a flock, but with every single ram, ewe, and lamb. For the shepherd, there is not an insignificant sheep. That’s why Eleazar always loved the scripture that talked about God as a shepherd.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want, he thought. Everyone in Israel could quote that line of Hebrew text. So why did they treat shepherds like something you scrape off your shoes when you step out of the sheep pen. Because of the bad shepherds, who sold off a lamb every once in a while without the owner knowing it, all shepherds were distrusted. Shepherds were assumed to be liars, or thieves, or worse.

Eleazar’s musing was cut short by a blinding light in the night sky. He bolted up, throwing off his cloak and raising his staff against the unknown threat. As his eyes adjusted, he saw a six-winged seraph flying was the source of the light. He had heard heavenly creatures described in the synagogue, but not like this. The seraph had a power about him that brought Eleazar to his knees. He was frightened, in a way that fending off a hungry lion could never scare him. He covered his face and did not dare look up.

“Do not be afraid!” the angel said in a voice that soothed the raw fear. “I am bringing you Good News of great joy for all people: to you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

The Messiah, Eleazar thought. A son of David in David’s city at last.

“This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger,” the Angel said. And with these words there was suddenly an innumerable band of seraphim filling the sky singing,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

Eleazar watched dazzled. The night sky blazed with an unearthly brightness, while the flock around him was oddly peaceful. The sheep sensed no danger. Neither did Eleazar, and for the first time in his life, he left the sheep. No harm would come to them this night. The great shepherd was born among the animals, for he was lying in a manger, a feed box. Was this even possible?

“Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place,” Eleazar cried out to Moshe and Samuel as he pushed the brush wall back in place and started down the hill toward Bethlehem. Samuel and Moshe were fast on his heels, each stunned by the heavenly messengers and their news.

Could this actually be happening? Eleazar thought. Eleazar knew how to find every stable in town and this was an important skill as they found well over half of them before they got to the right one. With the census taking place, herd animals were not the only ones in the stable that night. Most every stall in town had a family tucked in among the animals.

But they did find it. A smallish cave with the walls carved out to make more room for the few cattle, not unlike a dozen other stables they had stumbled into already. But in this one they found him. The mother and father were still staring with wonder at the tiny person in the manger. That same awe Eleazar had felt at a thousand calvings when he saw the perfect little lamb.

The stillness of the perfect little scene was already broken by their hasty entrance, then Moshe blurted out, “It’s the anointed one! The Messiah.”

“What’s he doing here?” Samuel said, but no one answered.

Eleazar stepped forward and looked at the baby boy. The mother had taken the strips of cloth and bound him tightly so that he would grow straight and tall, just like a good mother should. He was a perfect little baby like hundreds of other perfect little babies all around Israel that same night. Yet Eleazar knew that there was something about this boy that made everything different. This was not just a baby, this was the Messiah, God’s promised child. Emmanuel, he thought.

“Yes,” the woman said, “Emmanuel” and then Eleazar realized that he had said the word rather than thought it. Emmanuel—God with us. That was it. All those years he had been taught to expect the Messiah to be a king, but Eleazar could see this stable was as far from a palace as one could be born. The couple here for the census was surely descended from David, but so was Eleazar and so were at least a quarter of the people in Judah.

Eleazar held out his hands and then pulled them back. His shepherd hands were far too rough for the baby messiah, what was he thinking. But the man, lifted the child and placed him in Eleazar’s outstretched hands.

God had had a surprise for his people Israel after all, Eleazar thought as he held the Christ child. God had not sent a shepherd. God had sent a lamb. This little lamb is God.

Emmanuel meant so much more than Eleazar had been taught or ever dreamed. God did not come to earth in power and glory, but in weakness. This little boy in his arms was going to change everything. God knew and loved his people more than Eleazar had ever imagined. God did not want to tend the sheep, protect the sheep, not that alone, Eleazar knew. God had become the lamb.

(The Rev. Frank Logue is pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.)