Reflection:
We are loved, it seems.
And that makes all the difference.
Bethlehem’s shepherds knew all about social distancing!
The life of a hill-shepherd in the first-century could be
pretty lonely. Much of the time, the
only other humans a shepherd might have contact with was fellow-shepherds. So they lived a socially-distanced life in a
shepherd support bubble! Sound familiar?
The truth is whether it is 2020 or twenty centuries ago, the
socially distanced, support-bubbled life is tough!
As the shepherds kept watch during long and dark nights,
they were kept awake by the sense of threat: some real, some imagined. They remained alert just in case an invisible
predator required them to jump into action and to defend their sheep or their
fellow-shepherds.
You know, they didn’t always know what was going to happen,
or where the danger would come from. In
fact, they didn’t necessarily know the right way to deal with the danger when
it arrived. Much of the time they had to
survive by instinct, living on their wits … exercising their common sense (if
you like!) There were no daily
announcements from harassed looking ministers to remind them to wash their
hands, cover their faces and keep their distance! But then, there was no NHS to look after them
if they go ill either.
But as they spent their nights alert to the threats, with
nothing much happening, I guess it would have been easy for their imaginations to
run riot. I wonder how often they felt
forgotten or ignored. I wonder if it
made them feel miserable to be cut-off from everyone else wondering whether
anyone noticed how difficult things were for them. I wonder if they ever thought ‘no-one cares.’ They may even have imagined, from
time-to-time that others were getting on with their lives as normal whilst they
were left alone watching and waiting for the dangerous dark times to pass.
And we may feel that we have things in common with those shepherds as they sat in the darkness feeling alone, forgotten and sometimes afraid.
This morning it feels hollow to say, "Christmas isn't cancelled," when the newspapers headlines are screaming the opposite and when our plans have been left in pieces. We knew this Christmas was going to be different; we knew it was going to be a 'little' Christmas and only a couple of days ago we were promised the possibility that it would be a 'jolly' little Christmas. That all feels empty now.
I pray God will help us to not look around and seek for someone to blame, because that won't help either. Finding a blame-figure may give us some energy and focus in the short-term but we all know that blame-cultures ultimately produce nothing positive. So, it's okay to feel angry, or sad, or disappointed. Yes, it's okay to feel downright annoyed at what has happened. But let us not settle for staying there in that place where such strong emotions, a sense of gloom and helplessness engulfs us.
The Angelic messengers came from heaven to bring them a message that could pierce our thoughts of gloom and despondency.
From heaven they came to offer a different thought that would cast away the sense of abandonment and loss. The
angelic messengers came to declare:
“You have not been
forgotten. You are not left alone to
face the darkness and danger on your own.
You do not have to take your chance and hope for the best.”
The angels came
to tell them that through the long, agonising and desperate darkness, God had
been watching over them in love. And those angels pointed them to Bethlehem, where God’s love had been put on display.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2.11-12)
God has noticed! God
cares! God has not forgotten! And the proof lies in the manger for all to see.
The baby laid in the manger had come to cast out the darkness that had encircled us in gloom.
He had come to show us that God had not left us to work it out on our own.
He had come to protect us from those unseen, threatening wild beasts of the night.
And even though the threat of this moment has required us to take a path of sorrow that insists that we be distant from one another, the child in the manger reassures us that God is not distant from us.
The child of Bethlehem still invites us to draw close to him in worship and prayer.
The child of Bethlehem still draws close, to cast out our
fear and with the promise that he will remain near to us.
The child of Bethlehem reminds us that we, too are loved.
And
that, that makes all the difference!
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