Sitting with the Sacred

I first heard the reflection that inspired today’s post as part of the Hallow App’s Advent #Pray25 Challenge. Though I’ll be writing about the reflection from Day 24 of the prayer challenge, which was released on December 21, I decided I’d go back to it for this week’s post because it invites me to imagine I’m one of the shepherds from the Christmas story.

The reflection reminded me that the Old Testament “is full of” shepherds — David for one— who were also leaders of their people. However, by the time of Jesus’s birth the life of a shepherd was not an esteemed one. Shepherds spent much of their time not within communities but outside of them and in the company not of other people but of smelly, dirty animals. One of the narrators of the reflection, Jonathan Roumie, the actor who plays Jesus in the series The Chosen, says that because of the isolation and company (or lack thereof) associated with their occupations, shepherds were often thought of as “coarse” and assumed to be criminals.

Now that I’ve shared this context, I’m going to listen to the reflection again. As I do, I’ll share what comes to me. You can listen to the reflection here. (If the link doesn’t give you access to the reflection, please let me know.)

My first thought is that, given the historical, it’s no wonder the translation of Luke 2:9 included in the reflection says they were terrified. Not only are they confronted with sights and sounds they’ve never seen before and don’t have the words to describe, but also they’re being given news that it seems they’re meant to share with “everyone.”

In response to this message, I can imagine a first-century shepherd thinking, “Of all people, why has God chosen me to receive this news now, and why would anyone listen to me if I repeat it? Why would anyone believe me if they listen?

God understands where these questions are coming from. At the same time, God strengthens their faith by telling them, through an angel, what the Divine Presence looks like and where He could be found in the most complete and tangible way on that night.

The shepherds being chosen as the first people outside Jesus’ family to receive the news of his birth is a reminder that God doesn’t use the criteria that humans sometimes use when making choices. God doesn’t rely on sight or any other biological sense when God chooses someone, nor is God’s ability to choose wisely negatively affected by past experiences with other people or even with the person God chooses. It’s often said there is no linear time for God the way there is for us. I take this to mean that there is no past or future in God’s perception. In some way that I can’t understand as I experience linear time, past, present, and future are all unfolding at once for God. And yet, Luke tells us, God entered time by being born of Mary in a stable.

At the invitation of reflection, I imagine myself a shepherd who approaches that stable and the holy family in it. I imagine Mary turning toward the sound of my approach and trying to rise from lying in the straw. I tell her not to trouble herself, that I’ve heard something of what she’s been through. I recount what the angel said.

Mary says nothing, but despite my protests, she sits up and gestures for me to come to her. I do as she asks, and she lifts her baby from the manger. Before I have a chance to step back, she’s placing the baby into my arms.

Dear God, help me hold him gently but firmly. Don’t let me hurt him. What would become of me? Of him? Of this sorrowful world if I dropped him?

He begins to cry.

The sound brings me back into the present of that stable. I focus on making him feel secure. In doing so, I relish his soft solidness and the warmth of him as he wriggles out of the cloths in which his mother has wrapped him. I see to it that he is swaddled snugly once again.

He already smells like the donkey who’s been watching over him. The smell is not unlike that of the sheep whose odor I carry.

Jesus, thank you for trusting me to come to you, to hold you. You were so vulnerable at your birth and at your death so that I could approach you when I am at my most vulnerable. Thank you for the gift of vulnerability — mine and yours. Amen.