The smelly Shepherds?

Shepherds always get a prominent role in the Nativity Plays. They get to clutch those wooly sheep, and they are always clean. They wear tea towels on their head, with the bedsheet wrapped around them. But is that what we might expect? Who wants to play one of the smelly Shepherds?

The first Christmas

Can we imagine what it might have been like that ‘first Christmas?’ Bethlehem was full following the requirement from Quirinius that all should comply with the Census in this home town. Mary and Joseph’s home town was based upon their family lineage not where they were living now. Where would our home town be today?

Slight issue with the story here is that the history books seem to struggle with the record of Quirinius’ census in the correct time period. Here’s a much longer explanation.

There is no talk of Christmas here. It is another blooming nuisance caused by the Roman Empire. A needless extravaganza just so that they can ensure that the right amount of tax is due – didn’t they pay enough already? And the smelly Shepherds were no where to be seen.

Who knew?

The Emperor Caesar Augustus was totally unaware of the crowds filling Bethlehem. Not even the Innkeeper, if that’s part of our story, would have annotated the calendar – the first Christmas. The Shepherds, unable to write or read most probably, wouldn’t have given it a second thought until …

These “the people of the land”, whose testimony wouldn’t have even have been listened to, came with a story so far fetched that people might have thought why would they make up such stuff? Not requested to be recorded on the Census, with their precious – at least to them – charges of sheep and goats were to be left to look after themselves as they lost their senses and travelled off the ills to the town. What would the locals have made as these illiterate smelly labourers of the field came passing through the place?

The Shepherds were used to the concept of birth in strange places, regularly rescuing ewe’s as they had their lambs on the steep hillsides. This was to be different. Upon seeing the new child, they didn’t toddle off to the fields. They hadn’t seen the latest superstar, got the tick and felt that ‘that was that’. No, this was different. They weren’t perturbed that they were not dressed for the occasion, They didn’t even care that they were the smelly ones. They had seen the newborn, just as the Angels had foretold.

And us?

Do we look to our own life, taking our eyes off God, not pushing onwards for what God has asked us to do? When confronted with the startling news, the Shepherds ran to Jesus. We also can speak with our loving God whenever, wherever. It just takes courage, the will. To go beyond what others might think or feel, to not worry about about what others might say, but go forward with God.