A Shepherd's Story

In December of 2010 I wrote this story to present to the congregation of Champion Baptist Church for a special Christmas event.  I used it again in an evening service this year.  Of course, most of it is speculation, but the principles in it are what drove the first century church, what made it spread.  The central idea is the power of all that we do that is of any lasting importance.  In my own heart, Christmas and Easter are inseparable.  They were both needed in order to "fulfill all righteousness."  I hope that you enjoy the story, told from the point of view of a Shepherd born about 20 B.C.

Let me introduce myself.  I am Lemuel, and I have always been a shepherd.  My father before me was a shepherd, and all of his family.  As I write these words, I am old and barely able to hold a pen.  You might ask, “How does a shepherd know to write?” and you would be asking a good question.  I was a grown man before I first took up a pen, but it was out of necessity.  However, I’m getting ahead of myself.

You have read about me in the New Testament, though not by name.  I was one of the “shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night.”  I was only sixteen at the time, and was only there because my father had sent me to the field with my uncle.  It has been many years, and I have forgotten the reason I was there, but I know that it was planned by God.  I had spent the entire night in the pastures many times before; I think the first time was with my father when I was six years old.  But that night would change my life forever.  We shepherds know many things about the sky, and the wonders of the sky.  I always loved to watch those stars that suddenly shoot across the sky and die, and once a star spent several evenings with us, moving slowly across the sky, with a long tail of light trailing behind it.  But that night, what we saw was sudden and brilliant.  I know now that it was an angel, a messenger of God, and I marvel now when I think of it, that a created being who, only a moment before, had seen the face of God Himself, was now in our presence.

The light around him was blinding, and though we could understand his words, they were spoken with a roar that surpassed any thunder I had ever heard.  He told us not to be afraid.  He said he had wonderful news.  He told us that on that same day, a Baby had been born, and he called Him “Christ the Lord.”  My parents, though Jews, were not highly religious, but I had heard of a promised Christ: “Messiah” is what we called Him, and from the stories my grandfather had told me, I expected Him to ride into Jerusalem one day on a war horse, slay Herod with His sword, and put a descendant of David back on the throne.  Then He would lead us in killing the oppressors all around us, including the hated Romans.  I did not expect Him to be announced as a Baby, but when you hear a sound like thunder in the midst of an almost unbearable light, you tend to throw out your preconceptions and accept what is being said.

The other shepherds and I had almost gotten used to the sound and the voice when suddenly there appeared a whole multitude of angels with the first one saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men.”  The light and sound were all around us, and I still remember noticing that I had no shadow, since the light was coming from all directions.  As suddenly as it had happened, it was over.  For a moment, until our eyes adjusted, we were in total darkness.  When we could see each other again by the starlight, my uncle looked at me and said, “We are going to Bethlehem to see the Messiah!”

The first angel had told us how to find Him: He would be in a manger, wrapped up tightly in strips of cloth.  I was amazed at how quickly we found Him.  The family was from Galilee, we found out, a very young couple, and though they believed the baby to be the promised Messiah, they were as astounded as we were that it had happened, of all people, to us!  You see, shepherds and carpenters are not exactly at the top of the VIP lists in Palestine, and we were amazed that God had used us instead of prophets, priests, and kings.  We left there rejoicing, and proclaimed the coming of the Messiah to anyone who would listen.  Many people had realized that something different had happened that night, and they were more than ready to hear our story.

After a few weeks, like all human experiences, the excitement died down, and I sometimes wondered if it had just been a fascinating dream, but I knew it was too real to be a dream, and, after all, my uncle and several other shepherds had the same memories that I did.  I have to tell you, though, that my life for the next several years was nothing special nor exciting, except that I had been driven to the Scriptures, and I paid attention to what was being read in the Synagogue on Sabbath days.  I was amazed at how many scriptures pointed to the Christ.  When Passover came each year, I saw how it was filled with hope for a Redeemer, and knew I had seen Him; however, I was somewhat distressed because I was not sure why we killed the lamb for the meal, and how that fit in.

I never saw another angel, nor any signs in the heavens.  I heard about a Star, and remember two years or so after the night at the manger when Persian noblemen, swords on their sides and mounted on fine horses, entered Jerusalem with expensive gifts, asking for the King of the Jews.  It scared our whole country.  Rumors were that they had found the same Child we had seen, and after visiting Him, had departed undetected.

When I was nearly thirty, I was in Jerusalem on business, and was surprised to see a familiar face.  It was the mother of the Baby, with a worried look on her face.  I recognized her husband as well, and spoke to them: where was the Child?  How was he?  I was alarmed to find they had lost Him, and were in tears and panic looking for Him.  I was with them when we found Him in the Temple, speaking as a scholar – no, better than a scholar – to the teachers.  He spoke of the business He had with His Father, and He wasn’t looking at Joseph when He said those words.  Shortly afterward, they left the temple, and I returned to the fields and continued to tend sheep.

Fifteen years later, my father and my uncle both had died.  I had taken my own family and moved to Galilee after we lost our land near Bethlehem (it's a long story and not important right now), and we were living near Cana.  The region I was in was known more for its fishermen than its shepherds, and as one of the few people who knew how to raise quality sheep, I was able to develop a rather profitable business which grew comfortably and actually became better than the family business we had lost near Bethlehem.

A few years after moving there, a prominent family asked me to provide sheep for a wedding feast, and I brought them a week before the feast. I had been invited, as a courtesy, to return to the feast the next week, and went, I will admit, planning to "settle up" with the bridegroom's family, since the feast was nearly over. I was surprised to see once again the mother of the Child.  I knew He would be a man by now, and wondered why I had not heard of Him.  I was 46; He would be 30 by now, and should have established Himself.  I wondered why He had not.

I’m sure you know the story.  It was told everywhere; how He turned water to wine.  That was when I began to follow Him.  Oh, I was not what you call an “apostle,” but I was one of hundreds who were following Him at times.  I saw the work He did.  I was there when He preached the Sermon on the Mount, and at a later event I feasted along with 5,000 others on the loaves and fishes; that time I had brought my whole family with me.  My sons were getting old enough by then to tend the business, and I spent more time following Him, even when He returned to Jerusalem.  I could tell the stories to you again, but you’ve read what was written by others.  I knew both Matthew and John, and later met Mark when Peter visited my church.  Even Luke was introduced to me by Paul many years later as they traveled through my region, and Luke asked me for any insights I had on the Christ I had known.  He was astonished when I told him I had been one of the shepherds.  He had heard the story, but I was the only one of the shepherds he had ever met, and yes, it is the story I told him that is recorded in his gospel.  But again I digress.

You all know how Jesus talked about being fishers of men, and about laboring in the harvest, but have you noticed that most of His references to Himself were of sheep and shepherds?  This was language I understood, but the concept was still hard for me at times.  Sometimes He was the Lamb of God, and at others, He was the Good Shepherd.  Yet I listened and learned.  I began to have a nagging worry in the back of my mind as I thought of the Passover lamb, the scriptures about the suffering Messiah of Isaiah, and the need for shed blood to take away sins.  I put these thoughts out of my mind.

I followed Jesus, and saw His declining popularity among the people in that last year of ministry.  I was there when most left Him behind.  I was in the crowd on that last fateful trip to Jerusalem, and I am ashamed to admit that I was one of the disciples who scoffed when He told us He would be killed in Jerusalem.  After all, He was the Messiah, and had been announced as such by the angels themselves.

We were astonished when we heard the news that fateful morning.  Jesus had been arrested during the night, betrayed by one of the Twelve, and denied by another.  They were going to put Him to death.  Several of the others who had followed Him like I had ran to the place of crucifixion.  We thought there might be something we could do.  This was so sudden.  We had not been in the upper room with Him that night before; only a select few of His disciples had.  I was somewhat disgusted that none of them except John was there at the Cross.  As I watched, He died.  I thought, “We could have done something!”  But who was I – just a shepherd who had never been in the inner circle.  Jesus had spent time with me, and had addressed me directly a few times, and I still think that those “shepherd” allegories were for me, but really, I was only a footnote in the story of Christ.  I had once mentioned to Him that I was one of the shepherds that had visited Him the night He was born, but He seemed unimpressed, and I never brought it up again.

You know the other things that happened.  The darkness that covered the earth.  The “accident in the temple,” where the veil that covered the Holy of Holies was ripped in two.  The earthquakes and the dead people that many said they saw walking into Jerusalem.  But I was very disheartened and confused, and I just wanted to go back to Cana.  I had bought some sheep in Jerusalem, most of them unsold sheep designated for the Passover sacrifice, intending to enrich our own flocks with these unblemished sheep.  I had started back, and was almost to the border of Samaria, when Caleb, another disciple you have never heard of, caught up with me.  He said that there were reports that Jesus was alive.  I sent the sheep on home with the group I was traveling with, and hurried back with Caleb.

By the time we got back to Jerusalem, the apostles were talking about the Living Christ.  They claimed they had seen Him, and seen the scars in His hands.  Don’t get me wrong; I wanted to believe them, but this doesn't happen every day.  I knew He had raised some people, like Lazarus, from the dead, but even Jesus had told us that was just a temporary thing.  During my three days of soul-searching after Jesus’ death, I had reluctantly come to grips with the fact that He was the Passover Lamb.  I knew that the lamb came to dwell with the family, and that they got attached to it, and then it was slain for the Passover meal; that used to really affect me when I was a child.  I knew that its blood was put on the frame of the door, and now I had finally understood that Jesus the Messiah had come like that lamb, had lived among us, and that He had come to die.  I had finally realized it was not our fault He had been crucified, but that He had intended this from the beginning, and I was content that His shed blood had taken away my own sins and made me clean before the Father.  It was a sad story; my heart was broken, but I was grateful for the Sacrifice.

But I didn't expect Him to come back.  That was an incredible surprise.  I would only see Him one time.  I was watching some sheep east of Cana, near the Sea of Galilee, and somehow ended up near the shore as the disciples pulled in a great catch of fish.  It was mildly surprising to see the Twelve, back in boats, fishing, looking as normal as anyone.  But what were they doing now?  They were walking toward a small fire on the shore, where someone was tending a fire, and I smelled the aroma of cooking fish.  I suddenly realized that the Man who was cooking the fish for them was Jesus Himself: He was alive after all.

As I neared the group, Jesus caught my eye and beckoned for me to sit and join them.  I noticed that there were other disciples, in addition to the Twelve, who had somehow showed up there as well.  It was not coincidence; He had drawn us there.  He talked of many things, but I was most touched by what He told Peter.  He asked him three times if he Loved Him, and after each time, He had a different instruction for Peter.  It didn't involve fishing or agriculture; it involved my field: “Feed My lambs; Tend My sheep; Feed My sheep.”

He looked at me and made eye contact after having said these things, and I knew that I suddenly understood what He had commanded better than anyone else in the group at that moment.  I knew what I was supposed to do next.  Shortly after this, He would return to Heaven, and I would never see Him in His resurrected body again, but once had been enough for me.  Somehow, this event brought me into a closer fellowship with the apostles, and I was one of the 120 that were in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.

From that revival, I returned to Cana with other merchants and visitors from my home town, and I began to tell them all I had learned from Christ.  With my sons well situated in our sheep business, I had more time to pray and study what I had heard the Christ teach.  We began to meet in the synagogue in Cana after the Jewish Sabbath services, but when there was mild opposition, we changed to meeting on the first day of the week, in honor of the Resurrected Christ.  We met in homes, often in my own, and I was set apart as the chief elder of the church at Cana.  For forty years I have done that now, and I am nearing ninety years old.  Our church has not grown large, but we have sent out laborers for the harvest, southward into Samaria, northward into Syria, and beyond our local provinces to new places where the Light has not yet shone.

I was never the great evangelist that Peter was.  Though honored that Paul and Luke once visited my home and spoke to our church, I was never the missionary that Paul was.  I have just been a shepherd.  I tend God’s people, I feed the lambs so they will grow, and I feed the sheep so they can be equipped to feed others.  In the process, I learned to read and write, and have even copied some of Paul’s letters so they can be circulated among the dozens of new churches that are springing up each day.

I will die soon, and that does not frighten me at all.  My wife is already there with Christ, and my children, grandchildren, and their children are with me tending the sheep – the church that God has given us in Cana.  I am looking forward to seeing the glory of God again, as I saw it in that field near Bethlehem over seventy years ago.  The picture is still as clear in my mind as it was on that night, and I know I will see that glory again, and hear those roaring voices of praise again, but this time with a body that can appreciate it.

I consider myself blessed.  I have seen the Messiah as a baby, as a boy, and as a man.  I have seen Him as a prophet and as a sacrifice.  I have seen Him dead on a cross and glorified by the resurrection.  All that is lacking for me is to see Him in His fullness with eyes that are capable of beholding Him.  It won’t be long, and I anxiously await the face-to-face encounter with my Savior.  But until then, I will continue to do what He called me to do when I was just a little boy: feed His Sheep!