7th Tevet
December 20th
Dear Diary,
A knock sounded at the portal just now. Just a tiny knock that I may not have heard, if I had not been about to sweep my small pile of dust out the door. Lo, a young lad stood upon my threshold and handed me a bulky parcel which was wrapped in a fluffy white fleece.
"Oh, what a lovely lamb skin. Yeshua will be so cozy when He is snuggled up in it! And what are these?" I took the topmost clay tablet and examined it with an interested, yet quizzical gaze.
"Do you not know who I am?" he questioned with a disappointed air. Feeling reproached, I realized he was more than just an errand boy, being unsure of his identity, I felt reluctant to venture a guess.
"I am the son of the head shepherd who visited you in the cave."
Recognition dawned. The lamp had been so dim and smoky in that cavern; he had hung shyly towards the back, but now I recognized his fair youthful features.
"Although we are poor in earthly goods", he explained in a quaintly grown-up manner, "we longed to present a gift to the Christ Child."
"What is this all about?" I asked, holding up the tablet.
"It is our memories of the night the angels came to proclaim the glad news. My Abba wrote it!"
"Why thank you, thank you--"
"Joel, the name is Joel bar Abia."
"Thank you, Joel. Would you care for something hot to eat before you go?" I had seen him eying the steaming barley loaves resting beside pottery dishes of freshly churned butter and a delectable honeycomb.
He shrugged his shoulder, reluctantly, I suppose, not wanting to admit how hungry he actually was. I knew it was a long way back to the hills where the shepherds had been keeping watch over their flocks for the last several weeks, so I thrust two freshly buttered loaves into his hands just as Baby started to cry.
Joel watched eagerly as I went to pick up Yeshua. Then he followed me inside and pressed his forehead against the Baby's, tickled Him under the chin and with a boyish hop, scurried out the door, headed towards the hills.
It is time to lay my reed pen down. Yosef will wonder why there are only two barley loaves to go with our soup today. I would hasten to make more, but the coals have grown cold and there is no time. We will just have to make do today by having extra vegetables.
Same day...
Dear Diary,
The shepherds' story was so incredible! I read it to Yosef this evening while he was whittling away at a handle for some sort of tool, a bow-drill, I think.
(Yea, once again I am thankful that my dohd taught me to read.) I think Yosef enjoyed the story also and I noticed that his eyes were soft when he rose to tuck the blanket about the infant's tiny frame.
We have no room to store the clay tablets in our single-room dwelling, so I will be busy in the next few days transcribing them onto parchment before storing them in the chest with my diary and other precious scrolls. This will be a hard job for me because I have never copied another's writings before.
Remind me to mix up a new batch of ink. I am soon going to run out. I prefer to make my own, since every little thing I do to save money makes it easier for my hard working husband.
This is what the head shepherd wrote:
I, Abia, bar Dothan will now apply myself to writing down the memoirs of the shepherds' visit to the newborn King. The night I will tell you about will always be fixed in my memory with the slightest detail as clear as if it had but recently happened.
It had begun as a typical night for us shepherds, although colder than some, and those who were not stretched out on the grass fast asleep were huddled close to the fire chatting. Some of us had our young sons with us. Zeke has a trusty old kelev, (dog,) that most of us appreciate very much as he can faithfully make the rounds by himself.
To my right, Aron was carefully pruning away on a twig in order to make a sharp point. For what purpose I knew not.
"So what do you think about the coming of the Mashiach, Judah," he asked?
Judah sighed heavily. "I only wish He would come. When the Yisraelites were in bondage to the Egyptians, they were their slaves for four hundred years before deliverance came. How long is it now since the prophet Malachi plodded where we plod? Four hundred years? HaShem, hallowed be His Name, is silent! We need another deliverer!" He glanced around quickly, then added,
"The Roman taxes are too much to handle as it is, but," his voice lowered, "But it is the tithes that our religious leaders place on everything--absolutely everything that really drains us! No wonder so many of our brethren give up and join the hordes of bandits!"
"But we want to serve His Name faithfully!" Aron, one of the shepherds, protested. "Even if that means tithing."
Judah was about to put him in his place with a heated word or two, but I quickly tried to mollify him.
"There was Judah the Maccabee, your ancestor," I pointed out. "He strove to do his part."
"Yea, and would to HaShem that he was here, now!" Judah snapped the stick that he had been peeling in half, and hurled both ends into the fire. "I would raise up an army myself, but it seems so futile. Many a revolt has flared up, but those dastardly Romans quench it in no time! Their horrible crosses line the hills and roadsides."
We all looked down. Most of us were probably thinking about the disaster in Sepphoris not many years thence, and we dreaded the thought of it being repeated. That was one uprising that resulted in far too many horrible crucifixions.
Judah's chin jutted out, causing his thin, pointed beard to quiver as he glared at each one of us in turn.
"Think not that I am a coward because I am skulking around in these hills pretending to be a shepherd. They are ferreting out every son of the Maccabees as you well know, so we have to be sly. The time is not right."
None of us cared to disagree with him, nay, not with those fiery eyes boring into us.
We all fell silent. Some of us were inclined to stretch out on our backs; arms folded behind our heads and study the stars, others gazed meditatively at the glowing embers. I was watching the movement of the sheep. Gradually, it dawned upon me that they were becoming increasingly agitated for such a peaceful night.
My son, Joel, broke the stillness with a comment; "We have been learning about the lights in school," he ventured shyly.
"Lights? What lights?" Zeke prodded some sticks deeper into the coals then hunkered down beside Joel.
I spoke up; "He's referring to the lights in the temple in the time of Judah of Maccabee."
Zeke's face brightened, in the flickering fire light I thought I saw lingering smiles soften several countenances.
"That was a miracle," Joel said. As his father, I could tell that my son continued to feel ill at ease, surrounded as he was by all those rough, brawny shepherds.
Several heads nodded. There was a relaxing of the atmosphere as we sat back, reminiscing about Judah and his father Matthias. I am sure 'our' Judah was proud to be a descendant of such brave and fearless warrior--leaders who valiantly rescued Yerushalayim from the wicked Syrian-Greeks."
"I can almost picture their dismay, however, when they finally slashed their way through to the temple, only to find it in shambles." Aron sighed and poked idly at the embers; "What must have shocked those battle-hardened soldiers the most after all that fighting was to find that Jehovah's lamp had gone out and they were able to find only enough pure oil to last for one day!"
"Yet, it lasted for eight days!" Joel's good friend, Micah, piped up. There was a huge grin on his face.
"Until they were able to make more oil," another little fellow added. We all nodded jovially.
"Is there some sig--sig-nif-ee-glance in light? "Micah asked. I hid my grin behind my quivering mustache. Micah always did love to use such ridiculously long words.
"It represents HaShem," I explained.
I had been keeping an eye on the kelev, dog while we talked. He seemed restless and uneasy.
Now, he sat down on his haunches, and half whined, half whimpered at the sky.
Zeke arched his hand over his eyes. "Can't see any strange prowlers out there . . . can you?" He unfolded his long frame and ambled over to the kelev.
"Look at that!" Joel breathed, pointing with a shaking finger. Far in the distance, one star seemed to be hurtling towards us. As it increased mightily in size, as one man, we were pulled to our feet to stare at it. Then we saw that it was the radiant form of an extraterrestrial being, an Angel from far beyond the starry skies.
Terrified, we prostrated ourselves on the ground, and buried our faces in our arms. As quickly as the fear overcame us, it was quenched by the most majestic, yet beautiful, voice any of us had ever heard.
"Fear not, for I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people." Fear not? I looked up timidly, yet expectantly, and then the rest of what he said sank in.
What does he mean? All people? Blacks? Scythians? Greeks? Romans? Gaul's, bond, and free? Or did he just mean Jewish people and their Yisraelites brethren across the Euphrates, and elsewhere? What a marvelous message we were receiving!
But wait! He is not done! We gazed upon each other with looks of incredible joy as the angel explained how we would know it was true.
"For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior which is Christ the Lord." A Savior? In the City of David? That's Beth Lechem!!
"Come with me! We must go find him!" But in the space of a heartbeat, before I could even utter those words, the sky seemed to explode with a thousand twinkling lights; in the blink of an eye they were transformed into the most magnificent gathering of Angels that this world has ever seen.
I will never be able to comprehend why we poor, lowly shepherds were given the privilege of hearing that awe inspiring celebration, but I am telling you, we were sure thrilled.
It's a good thing that ole Zeke's kelev is a dependable critter, because wild hyenas could not have kept us woolly shepherds from rushing pell-mell into the city, trouping down the streets to find where baby Yeshua lay. You should have heard the shouting an' singing, an' general carrying on while we scurried over those hills.
It didn't last, though. Such a deep hush came over us when we stooped to enter the cave, and followed the smoky trail of the poor pilgrim's oil lamp. He led us, we were almost on tiptoe, to where the newborn Baby lay nestled in his weary, but happy mother's arms. We all dropped to our knees in worshipful adoration.
You should have seen Judah as he held that small infant. The tears trickled down his weathered, craggy cheeks and he kept murmuring;
"He's come; the Deliverer has come."
All glory, praise, and honor belong to our great Yahweh for allowing us the honor of worshipping His Newborn Son. The Light of the world arrived on Chanukkah.
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