Christmas

Reader: Please see last week’s blog; as this is a follow-up to that story.

Friends,

It seems but yesterday, but alas, it was nigh several years ago; yet I shall never forget what my animal eyes saw that night.

The evening was crisp and the wind was quick. Many summers I have cursed my fur; this night I was grateful for its cover. A young foal at the time, my work was still light; yet the days still long as I learned my beast of burden trade. I was tired and my body cried for rest. Breath steamed from my nostrils, condensing on my nose and served up an incessant drip of warm saltiness that only begged further my thirst.

Coming over the last hill, I began to froth freely; the day’s work taken a greater part of me than realized. Water, straw, and rest were my only thoughts.

As I drew closer to my shelter, I could see something was very much the matter. Busyness surrounded it. My animal friends encircled the stable. A dim light cast shadows of intruders within. “Of all nights, why clean the stalls tonight?” I groaned.

The closer I came, the shadows gave way to faces; one a man, the other a young woman. The woman, though seated, was uncomfortable; the man stood near. This woman was in labor with child.

The little family to be was not going to receive sympathy from me this night. I was cold, tired, and hungry; I was not the imposition, they were. I pushed through two cows and knocked over a sheep—positioned now to bellow my case. Before able to voice contention, the woman birthed the child. I paused as the man wrapped the babe in cloth and laid Him in a manger—my manger!

I had seen enough. What little sympathy I may have had vanished. I turned only to discover that more humans now found my stable. A few dressed stately, most were common folk from the fields. “What is going on?” No one responded to my inquiry. All were caught up in the birth of this human child. “What’s a baby doing with animals, anyway?” Again, no answer; all were lost in the still.

“Enough is enough,” I brayed. “I am tired, I am hungry, and I am cold. No baby is more important than a full belly and a soft bed.”

A pig bristled hard against me, “Donkey, don’t you know who this is? This is He who the prophets have spoken and man calls Messiah. Creation has groaned for this night yet you groan only for yourself. Bow your head, donkey; greet your King.”

Pig, never known for tact, got my attention.

And it is why I now write you. You humans celebrate this Messiah’s birth on Christmas morn. Let not your lives vale His. For as the Holy Scriptures proclaim: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”

Celebrate His birth, my friend. I almost forgot; you mustn’t.

God Bless,

Donkey

Note to reader: A number of years ago, I began writing what I hoped one day would be a children’s book. It was penciled out to be 26 chapters (letters, actually) entitled “If They Could Talk.” It was to cover redemptive history from creation (Genesis) to the return of Christ (Revelation) from the perspective of animals commenting and reflecting as eye witnesses at key moments in biblical history. I finished 14 of them before parenting and pastoring caught up to me. This was one of them. 

Friends,

Four hundred years of silence, four hundred years of waiting; then it happened—and I was there. It was not my choice. I go where they tell me. I’m one of those, what do you call it?—compliant types. A shepherd’s crook tends to do that to you.

A Bethlehem hill, a winter’s night, a stiff Northeasterly; these are not a good combination, even for one with wool. If not for a hot fire and a warm conversation, I don’t know what our thinly clad shepherds would have done. On nights like this, I eat. It passes time and fills the belly, an enjoyable pursuit in an otherwise not so enjoyable situation.

Then it all happened so fast, I don’t know from which direction, or if there even was a direction. But they were there, everywhere. Bunches and bunches of them; and a holy light filled the cold Judean sky.

Heaven’s silence ceased when an angelic messenger spoke: “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord!”

And we sheep looked at each other; all covered with awe and bursting from what we just heard. “It is happening,” one sheep bleated from behind. “Do you hear?” he continued, talking to no one in particular, “the Messiah, he is coming to bring man back to God.”

I cried. For I knew this was so. I was standing upon history’s hinge. God’s plan, promised for centuries, was unfolding. And I was there to usher its dawning. Next, more voices of no earthly tone; clear, full, and beautiful, rang forth from the rest of the gathered angelic host: “Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.” And then they were gone.

Scurrying with excitement and falling over each other with joy, our shepherds tumbled and bounded down the hill to find Him whose birth had been foretold. It was then I found myself alone as my sheep friends also had run to tell of His birth to other animal friends.

A bright star still rested above. Its glimmering rays seemed to touch a small stable in the valley below. “He is born,” I whispered to myself. “He is here,” I breathed. “The King has come. O, how shall He be received?”

God Bless,

Sheep