Dcn Tom Lindell

Happy New Year! Amazing how time flies!!

In today’s Eucharistic Gospel from Luke, the shepherds were terrified to have been approached by a messenger who announced the good news of the birth of a Savior in the City of David. After departure of the messengers, they left their herds and decided to go to Bethlehem to see what had happened. There they found Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus laying in a feeding trough (manger) just as they had been told.

I wonder why the author(s) of Luke singled out the simple shepherds to receive the good news ahead of the rest of humanity. We know that Matthew and Luke are the only Gospels that contain birth narratives. Although different, we often combine them to expand the story.

My naive question is who was there to record these events that chronicled the birth of Jesus? We only know for certain that there was a birth that probably took place in their hometown of Nazareth because there is no historical record that the census commissioned by Herod actually took place in Judea.

Despite the above questions, these beautiful stories are the very fabric of the tradition of the Christmas we Christians celebrate. Some are surprised that we refer to them as stories. However, stories are not fantasy. They contain truisms that simply are not meant to be literalized. All stories are intended to invite us into an imaginative journey into the story. The same is true for liturgy. Does it get any better than that?

Albert Einstein once said, “If you want your children to be brilliant, tell them fairy tales. If you want them to be even more brilliant, tell them more fairy tales.” Einstein knew the importance of cultivating a rich imagination in children. If you have read stories to children, you are aware of how they process them uncritically without the need to literalize them.

Please indulge me in a little Epiphany humor:

The Snail Christmas Poem

Of Orient there were three snails
Who followed ancient Bedouin trails
To see the birth at Bethlehem.
Their names were Nathan, Gar and Shem.
They crept behind the shining star,
The going slow, the distance far
And came just thirteen years to late
(the Gospels don’t record their fate),
But lucky Nathan, Shem and Gar
Were present at the Bar Mitzvah.

What Nathan, Shem, and Gar went to see:

—Dcn Tom