The Christmas narrative as told by Luke is addressed to simplicity.
Simple parents…an ordinary couple.
Simple shepherds minding their flocks by night…
A simple enough location, that little tiny hamlet – off the road place called Bethlehem…
A simple story line…
Taxation – census
Pregnancy and an impending birth
And travel…from point A to point B
God himself makes an appearance in a gurgling infant in weakness and in total helplessness.
These were all humble and simple people…Not movers and shakers…not a big wheel to be found among them.
Common – ordinary…pedestrian.
Open people
People who could hear God…
People who listened – for the voice of God…
Their lives were not cluttered – like ours today.
There was no rat-race.
No white noise. No static sounds.
There was no pressure to find the right or the perfect Christmas gift.
People were not so outspoken and mean.
There were no long lines and filled parking lots.
There was no holiday stress.
CNN did not break in with “another new development” every 15 minutes.
There were no cell phones – people could and did, do without…quite nicely.
Screaming headlines and tweets did not disturb their daily routines.
People did not have to have an app for everything…
They did not have to instantly know what was going on the face of all seven continents at the same time.
Their immediate location was enough of a concern for them.
Social media meant talking and having actual conversation with your neighbors…without using emoji’s .
There was no breaking news…and no such thing as “road-rage.”
Minds were free to wander and roam and to actually think about things with no constraints of time.
One could actually brood the night away, if one so desired.
It was a simple day and a simple time, free from all the hustle and bustle. Demands were a whole lot less.
Sure taxes were high and people were dirt poor but the vast majority of them – were all in the same boat together.
People shared what little they had…and they cared about one another.
People were neighborly…they were there for one another.
Little things did not clutter their memories and unimportant things were simply left as being totally unimportant.
Why fog your head?
Why fill your head with nonsense.
People stuck with what they knew…what they could see…what they could understand and what they could use.
The rest – well, that wasn’t for them…and they let it go with that!
I suspect that if we were there, knowing what we know and expecting what we expect we could really cloud the whole story. Our retentiveness would take over.
There would be no peacefulness. No serenity. The pressure would be on, and we would likely be the cause of it. Simplicity would come to its end.
We are far more progressive than all that. We would bring the drama, if not, create it. We would bring the conflict. We would want everything to be sanitized, compartmentalized, clean and orderly. We would want written statements from each of the shepherds individually, as to what they had seen and heard. Mary would be viewed as a single mother and Joseph would be her “significant other.” We would have a million and one questions to ask. We would want to read any fine print and have it all checked over by our attorneys.
Thank God the story was written then and we cannot overtly impose ourselves into its context.
Thank God that was then and this is now.
The beauty and the simplicity remains…
When the shepherds heard the angels’ message, “to you is born a savior, Christ the Lord” – there was never any doubt or concern, but only great relief!
A Savior-for me. Amen.