“Seventy five, seventy six, seventy seven. They’re all in.” Moshe called out.

“Pull those bushes in close and then gather some wood for a fire.” Samuel commanded.

“Not yet Samuel,” came the voice from the gathering darkness.

What now, Samuel thought. That old man is never content. “Why not Eleazar? The sheep are all in. It’s getting dark. You’re the one who likes to set up these brush walls.”

Surrounding the sheep with a wall of tangled brush was Eleazar’s way of tending sheep. None of the other shepherds did it, at least not anymore. The brush walls did get the sheep to settle down easier, but it was too much work, just to save one, maybe two sheep a year. Joel bar Amoz knew they would loose some of his sheep to wild animals, every sheep owner did. If the owner didn’t care, why should the shepherd? But that wasn’t Eleazar’s way.

“We have seventy-eight sheep now Samuel,” Eleazar said.  “I have reminded you of this every night for the three nights since the new lamb was born, and I will keep on reminding you until you can get it into that thick skull of yours. It’s not too much for a shepherd to remember the sheep in his care.”

Eleazar did not understand this. The flock is not merely how a shepherd makes his living; the flock is a shepherd’s life. Eleazar had been watching sheep for 42 years. He had no other life. Would have no other life.

“Watch the opening on the enclosure while Moshe gets the firewood,” Eleazar said. “I’ll handle this one.”

Not a lamb. Eleazar was sure of that. The ewes were usually good about keeping their lambs close. He had counted all twenty-nine lambs anyway. The one three days earlier was a late lamb, the last one of the season.

Nearly half the flock were lambs by year’s end. They were timed just right for Passover. This was a trick of Eleazar’s that made a good profit for Joel bar Amoz and assured Eleazar that he would always have a good flock to tend.

It would probably be Jonah. Eleazar named the young ram who tended to wander Jonah, for the prophet who headed west when God called him to go north. Eleazar wandered into back along the path they had followed in the late afternoon, trying to get his eyes to pick out the landscape in the blue dark. Only the evening star yet shown in the night sky.

Joel bar Amoz always bragged in Eleazar’s presence that he was the best of shepherds because he thought like a sheep. He was pretty sure that the wealthy man meant it as a compliment. Eleazar knew that the truth was something deeper, something hidden from most of the men and boys who called themselves shepherds.

Ever since he could walk, Eleazar had lived among sheep. His father had been a shepherd and when his mother died giving birth to him. Eleazar had gone to live with an aunt. But just after his third birthday, his father had come for him.

“A shepherd should grow up among the sheep,” his father had declared, cutting off the arguments of his wife’s sister and her husband.

So Eleazar had grown up among the sheep. The rhythm of their lives was the rhythm of his life. He knew their hopes and fears instinctively and could not understand why the other shepherds were so unknowing about the herds they guarded.

The shepherd’s job was straightforward enough. Make sure they get the food and water they need and protect them from wild animals and thieves. That summed it up. But most of the shepherds Eleazar worked with over the years watched the sheep without really noticing them. They pushed the sheep too hard. They didn’t care when they lost a few sheep each year to their own carelessness. Eleazar realized long ago that the key to tending sheep was not to watch them, nor to think like them. The key to tending sheep was to become the sheep. He knew he could not really become a sheep, but it would be the best way to care for them, the shepherd who was both sheep and shepherd.

When Eleazar was a boy, running to keep up with the herds, he learned to know when the sheep were hungry, or thirsty, or frightened. He never had to watch the hillside to see if any animals posed a danger to his flock. He watched the sheep. Most of them would not know danger until it was too late, but if you knew the sheep to watch, their was always a wiser ram or ewe who just knew when danger was in the air. After watching those wise sheep for enough years, Eleazar could feel it as well. He did not wonder when danger was present. He just knew. Eleazar could sense it on the wind.

Sometime over the last 42 years, Eleazar had set becoming the sheep as his goal. He wasn’t there yet. The herd still had a surprise for him every once in a while. But not on this night. For there is where Jonah would be. Eleazar was sure of it. He could see a little side trail leading down to the wadi, a dry riverbed. Just the sort of place where a sheep daydreaming of lying down beside still waters would head.

Eleazar picked his way down the rocky hillside and soon found his Jonah. He shooed the ram ahead of him and the two started back to camp. Jonah was a good ram, he knew to go where the shepherd led him, at least when darkness was settling in. By the time they got back to their makeshift sheep pen the night was dark and the stars shown brightly even over the fire Moshe had blazing.

“That same ram?” Samuel asked.

“Yes, our Jonah headed west again,” Eleazar answered, noting that Samuel knew their flock better than he let on some times.

            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 the source of the light was a six-winged seraph hovering overhead. Eleazar 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 heals, 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 sheep.

Story ©2003 by The Rev. Frank Logue
December 24, 2003
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
 

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