Shepherd's Rock

"Now, my boy, it was a lot like this night.  Really dark.  No stars.  Couldn't see your hand.  The sheep had settled down for the night and we were sitting around the fire next to Shepherd's Rock.  Just like now.  Your Uncle Benjamin had just started one of his stories when all of a sudden he just stopped and pointed over my shoulder into the sky.  It is like I have told your father many times, my son, I had never seen an angel, but I knew in that moment I was looking at one.  We all fell face down in the dirt scared to death.  He told us not to be afraid and to go to Bethlehem.  Hardly had he quit speaking when the whole sky was full of singing angels.  What a sight!

 

And, then, as quick as they came, they were gone.  Pitch black again.  No light but the fire.  Everything was just like it was before the angels except us.  I don't know who said it, but someone said, "Let's go to Bethlehem."  And so we did.  Now don't you ever do what we did.  You don't leave your sheep out here without someone to watch after them, but we did.  We had to go.  The angel told us a baby had been born who was Messiah.  We had to go.  We had to see.

 

We found him.  It was not like we expected.  When we found Him, he was in a hay filled animal trough.  His Mother was no older than your cousin Sarah.  She and her husband did not seem surprised when we told them about the angel.  They just looked at each other and smiled as if people see angels every day.  When we went back into the darkness, we knew the angel who had appeared to us had it right.  The baby they called Jesus really was the Messiah.  We knew it then because everything was just like the angel said it would be and we know it now because the One born way back then hung on a cross till he died and then rose from the grave.  I saw that happen, too.  I know Jesus is our Savior.  I want you to know it, too."