The shepherds at those tidings

Rejoiced much in mind,

And left their flocks a-feeding

In tempest, storm and wind,

And went to Bethlehem straightway

The Son of God to find

Ooooooooo …..

The Gospel of Luke pays a great deal of attention to shepherds in its telling of the nativity. They – like Mary and Zechariah – hear the message of God’s salvation that is coming through a birth. They go with great haste to see and understand the reality of what the Lord had made known to them. They – again like Mary and Zechariah – immediately tell of the message of joy that the birth brings, glorifying and praising God. And they provide much, even now, for us to treasure and to ponder.

The author of the gospel emphasises the importance of the shepherds in their nativity, in order to establish the link between the birth of the Christ and the reign of David. For David was the king whose ancient throne in the heart of Israel and in the city of Jerusalem, they believe the Christ will eventually occupy in a transgressive and transformative way.

In the books of Samuel and Kings within the Hebrew Bible, David’s most positive identity was given as the kingly shepherd of God’s people: a boy called from caring for his flock to defeat the champion of their greatest enemies; who rejoiced before God with wild abandon; who became a leader and also a pastor to the nation; and whose family line was imagined as and prophesied to be a source of hope, through the destruction of Israel’s unity and its loss of independence long after.

The Hebrew Bible also talks again and again of God as the shepherd of Israel: a perfection of this model, but rooted in the real faithfulness of a shepherd’s care for their sheep and goats. A shepherd’s care is absolute, and it is self-sacrificial. They place the safety of their sheep and goats before all else. They also drive them and control them, with rod and staff the means of their ungentle ‘comfort’. This God also does for his people.

The shepherd and their flock is an image the Church has taken on for our community too, perhaps unwisely extending it to the relationship between clergy and their people, and issuing bishops with crooks to direct and ‘encourage’ us.

The Gospel of Luke blends together the royal and the divine associations of shepherds, to then have actual shepherds discover the Messiah’s hope: they symbolise an inheritance of independence, godliness and peace, all then fulfilled in the most unexpected ways through Christ’s own life and teaching.

The reality of life as a shepherd was – and still is – a hard one. Less royal and more reliable, so that shepherds would never leave their flocks alone out in tempest, storm and wind as the carol imagines. They’d be with them, half frozen and fully soaked, trying to bring them down to shelter and to feed in a temperate valley instead. That kind of shepherding as solidarity is a good model for the church and our community as a whole to aspire to.

James Rebanks, who is a shepherd in the Lake District now, writes that shepherds are plagued with anxiety to do their work fast and well in winter. The feast of Christmas always seems to come in the middle of a spell of hard, wet weather in Cumbria. But in sleet, snow or squall, the farm and its sheep always come first. He'll be out this morning, on the intake fields above the Eden valley, to see his flocks safe and well fed before any family celebrations might follow.

Perhaps that’s the reason the shepherds in the Gospel rushed to Bethlehem, even if it’s unrealistic to think of them abandoning their sheep and goats as in the carol: they came at speed, to see and to gabble out the message of hope they brought with them, under pressure and constraint of winter and the flock’s needs.

Yet it’s tempting to imagine a moment of stillness – of perfect, cherished peace – following their words. In Rembrandt van Rijn’s ‘The Adoration of the Shepherds’, everything seems still. Still not only because it’s a painting, rather than a piece of kinetic art, but still because of the atmosphere that the artist wants to evoke.

Rembrandt imagines the shepherds gathered around the Christ child in astonished and stunned adoration. They – and animals in the background – are in part shadow, and the darkness of the outside of the scene has been heightened by the layers of warm-coloured resin and thick varnish that have been painted over the oils there to preserve them.

At the centre of the shepherd’s circle, the Christ child glows, casting light on the shepherd’s faces and hands. He is unobscured by any layers overcoating the picture. And so bright light radiates from the child who is sleeping and swaddled, changing and challenging the night, and cheering its figures. Bringing them a time of peace by its embrace.

So that the shepherds, their faces and hands aglow from the lantern lying in the crib, rest there merry. That’s the carol’s title of course. It’s a phrase that means that they abide in gladness and they are granted in this moment hope, joy and peace. They are granted in this child those things, and can take their rest in his presence.

This Christmas, whether you are made frantic or stilled by the season; whether you are gentlemen or not; also rest ye merry.

Let us all live by the story of the shepherds who went with hope and haste to Bethlehem; who became signs that, in the Christ child, David’s line was being fulfilled and God’s care for his people was being perfected, by their presence there.

Let us rush with all speed to discover in the embrace of our hearts and in the shared experience of worship before the Christ child, his comfort and joy. So that this message we may also tell, as has been told to us, by the tidings of shepherds.