Well, That Was Different!

Steve Venour - Head of Secondary

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

Luke 2:8-15

This reminds me a little of that parenting moment when you have just got the baby settled after what feels like hours of patient hard work and your partner bursts through the door jubilantly yelling that Carlton kicked another goal... (as if that ever happens….) 

The angel of the Lord is trying to calm down the still trembling shepherds, who are struggling to adjust to their usual evening of relaxed tedium being so dramatically interrupted. “Calm down. This is good news. It is joy for all the people.” And then, right in the middle of the ‘don’t be afraid speech’ a great company of the host of heaven suddenly appears in full voice – and any vestiges of calm is completely destroyed. I can almost imagine the angel turning to the host: “I was this close…”

Like a rip in the fabric of the temporal world and the shepherds have a glimpse of heaven on earth – the brightness, the majestic praise -  a revelation of how things really are, before the curtain of mortality is lowered and all they can see once again are the fields and the stars and the sheep. Can there ever be a more surreal experience?

The tranquillity and quiet chatter about the ordinariness of life on a dark hillside in the country, then the jarring explosion of noise and colour and brightness that would make a Baz Luhrmann film seem beige and then again stillness and night and crickets and stunned silence and eventually, after what would have to be a long pause, the guy who says, “Um… well… Let’s go to Bethlehem…(Luke took out the ‘Um… well’ part but I suspect it was there in the original telling…)

This is a part of what Christmas is. Of course, it is about Jesus – but he appears so humbly and ordinarily that we can miss the cosmic import. We are part of a much larger story. Not larger in the sense that it extends beyond Melbourne but in the sense that it is a whole different order of things. 

My prayer is that as we step out of a pretty tough year and have the fortune of being able to travel and holiday once again, that we catch a glimpse this Christmas of the true nature of things, a tear in the fabric, as we reflect on Christ’s incarnation and are reminded of the cosmic venture we are all invited to participate in.