Benefice Carol Services
Sunday December 22, 2024
Usual array of readings… Isaiah, Micah, Luke, Matthew
The Song of the Shepherds by Richard Bauckham
We were familiar with the night.
We knew its favourite colours,
its sullen silence
and its small, disturbing sounds,
its unprovoked rages,
its savage dreams.
We slept by turns,
attentive to the flock.
We said little.
Night after night, there was little to say.
But sometimes one of us,
skilled in that way,
would pipe a tune of how things were for us.
They say that once, almost before time,
the stars with shining voices
serenaded
the new born world.
The night could not contain their boundless praise.
We thought that just a poem —
until the night
a song of solar glory,
unutterable, unearthly,
eclipsed the luminaries of the night,
as though the world were exorcised of dark
and, coming to itself, began again.
Later we returned to the flock.
The night was ominously black.
The stars were silent as the sheep.
Nights pass, year on year.
We clutch our meagre cloaks against the cold.
Our ageing piper’s fumbling fingers play,
night after night,
an earthly echo of the song that banished dark.
It has stayed with us.
God seems to rather like shepherds. They certainly get the most spectacular invitation to the nativity in Bethlehem.
Mary gets a personalised visit from the angel Gabriel and Joseph has his angelic visit in a dream. The Wise Men get their star. The shepherds get their very own angel AND the heavenly host. Out in their field, without light pollution and aeroplane noise, the blaze of the angels must have been dazzling and inexplicable. In the Song of the Shepherds, I read that ‘the night could not contain their boundless praise’.
No wonder these rough and tumble men of the fields needed to be reassured that there was nothing to fear.
The Saviour had been born in David’s own city; Bethlehem. King David started life as a shepherd too. He was the youngest brother and not much was expected of him. He ended his life as the greatest king Israel ever had. God has liked shepherds for a long time.
As soon as the angels disappear, the Shepherds set off to Bethlehem to look for the child. This night was going to be different than any they had ever known. In the opening verse of Richard Bauckham’s poem, the shepherds were familiar with the night, the colours, the sullen silence, the small, disturbing sounds, unprovoked rages and savage dreams. They slept in turns and said little.
The life of a shepherd was likely lonely and isolated. It was not an honourable profession; it was a job for the uneducated and low skilled, those on the margins, criminals and other undesirables. Yet it was an incredibly important job. Sheep were a valuable commodity to their owners. Sheep also need a good amount of care.
We have modern day equivalents of shepherds; think of those people who are poorly paid, unseen but do important jobs that we rely on. The convenience that many of us live with would be diminished without them.
To them the most important news ever reported was given first. The stars with shining voices serenaded the new born world through the least likely recipients. The life of a shepherd was fairly uneventful until one night, one moment God breaks in. This is the big story of Christmas. The arrival, the breaking in of Jesus.
This is the event that changed the shepherds. Jesus is still changing lives today.
I love the final paragraph (read again…)
Later we returned to the flock.
The night was ominously black.
The stars were silent as the sheep.
Nights pass, year on year.
We clutch our meagre cloaks against the cold.
Our aging piper’s fumbling fingers play,
night after night,
an earthly echo of the song that banished dark.
It has stayed with us.
The shepherds returned to the flock. The night as black as ever and the stars are silent once again. Life returns to normal. Yet according to the last line, it has stayed with us.
What stays for you in the Christmas story?
Does anything in the readings and music break into the familiarity and favourites of your life?
Maybe, like the shepherds, we are clutching meagre cloaks. Or old dreams, ideas and plans. Maybe things are a little too familiar and motivation or desire for new things has diminished. Is there space for God to break in?
Like for the shepherd’s aged piper, there is a new song to be learned and played. An earthly echo of the song that banished dark.
In the birth of Jesus, there is a new song and a new hope. As we keep Christmas this year, I would encourage all of us to listen out for the new song. There is one for you.