Of Angels, Shepherds and Wise Men

By Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge
Originally published December 2006 in the Central Oregonian of Prineville, Oregon

Characters From The Christmas Story People Our Every Day Lives

The Christmas holiday is one that means something different to everyone. For some, it means a trip out of town to visit relatives. For others, it means the arrival of the relatives. Some combine relatives with friends, and some spend the day alone. For some families, the highlight of the day is the opening of gifts. For others, it may be a family ritual such as a dinner or attending church together or reading the nativity story.

Regardless of how you and your family spend Christmas, you probably know the basic elements: Christmas is the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. The history and tradition of this event is reported in four separate gospels in the New Testament, each of which includes a few details not mentioned in the other three. For the most part, however, we Americans get the gist of the event: Jesus was born in a town called Bethlehem in Judea, where his parents had traveled at the command of Caesar Augustus. Because everyone else was traveling at the same time, there was no room at the inn, so Mary and Joseph had to take lodging in a stable. As a result, the Son of God was born in a manger, attended by animals. In the age before television, news of the event was broadcast immediately—by choirs of angels who appeared to terrified shepherds watching their flocks on nearby hillsides. Once these farmers got over the shock of seeing angels, they hurried to Bethlehem to worship the new baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. At some point thereafter, wise men, (labeled kings in some versions) followed a star to the place where the baby lay in order to do him homage.

There might be some parts of the world where the basic elements of Christmas still aren’t understood, but I’m willing to guess that Prineville isn’t one of them.

A theologian could probably explain why the gospel writers chose to emphasize these elements in telling the Christmas story. Surely there are lots of other things they could have talked about: Was it cold when the baby was born? Was the birth difficult? What was Joseph’s reaction to all of this? What was the reaction of townspeople of Bethlehem to the appearance of stars in the sky above them and choirs of angels breaking out into song in the fields around them? On these points, the gospels are silent, and we are left only to contemplate. All we are told for certain is that angels, shepherds and wise men were part of the mix.

I am no theologian, but I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a parable in the gospel writers’ choice of images. I have often thought that angels, shepherds and wise men might be a metaphor for the important and basic roles we depend on people to play in our lives even today.

I know that we in Crook County are surrounded by angels, shepherds and wise men, and for the most part, we don’t appreciate them for who they are as we see them going about their everyday work.

Too often, we think about doctors, nurses, therapists, aids, orderlies and other health professionals as those people on the other end of the insurance bill (assuming we are fortunate enough to have insurance.) Not until we’re in crisis do we truly stop to appreciate that these people have lives that don’t revolve around us. They too have families and Christmas dinners to attend. When we ask them to neglect those in order to care for us, they are in many respects very much the angels among us.

As for the shepherds, that’s easy: they are the people who put their lives on hold in the course of protecting us from our own folly. The shepherds take many forms: They are the search and rescue volunteers, who take time from family or job to hunt down lost hunters and hikers in the forest. They are the policemen, deputies and troopers and traversing dangerously slick highways to answer the distressed calls of stranded motorists. Each fireman and EMT, turning out in the dead of night, is a shepherd, and so are the road crews that plow snow round the clock or clean culverts at 2 a.m. so that we have a chance of surviving our own stupidity when we drive too fast to work in the morning.

And then there are the wise men (and women). These are the people we look up to and to whom we look for guidance and comfort. These people don’t sort themselves in an easily definable way. Sometimes they are visible elected leaders, although elected office itself doesn’t confer wisdom. Sometimes they are leaders through example, such as food pantry workers, youth leaders, service club members, or church leaders. These selfless individuals care so deeply about others that they sacrifice their own comfort to make a difference in the lives of fellow men and women by contributing their labor, their resources and their leadership to make a difference. And then there are the village elders, those whose life experience, life example and good humor inspires the rest of us to keep striving to replicate their example. They too are wise men.

I think perhaps it’s not an accident that the gospel writers placed their emphasis on angels, shepherds and wise men at the expense of so many other details in the Christmas narrative. To the degree that the gospel offers a roadmap for life, I wonder if we aren’t called by this story to pause a moment amidst the hectic pace of Christmas preparations and think about the categories of people who make essential contributions to our lives.

Angels, shepherds and wise men were present at the dawn of the new era. They were witness to and actors in ushering in a new kingdom. Their contributions of sharing joy with the rest of the world, lending their protection to gentle animals and newborn babes and stubbornly following stars so that they could witness and pay tribute to revitalization and rebirth of civilization itself is a story that is timeless.

The possibilities of a world which values Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men aren’t limited to the village of Bethlehem two thousand years ago. Men and women in our community are striving to convert possibility into reality each and every day.

There are angels, shepherds and wise men among us still. To them and to their families and to each of you, have a blessed Christmas.