Last year, I wrote a short story for Christmas. My family loved it, and the post had a few thousand hits, so I thought I'd make it a tradition. I wrote this today, and will read it to my family tomorrow. It's not edited, but her you go. I hope you enjoy it.
The Shepherd Who
Wouldn’t Leave His Flock
There are two types of shepherds in
the world. One has a flock of sheep,
small or large, which are his. He owns
them. He raises them and watches over
them as they graze. He sheers them,
sells their wool, and benefits fully from the sweat of his brow. The second type of shepherd helps the first
type. He watches other people’s
sheep. No one can look after their sheep
every second of every day and night, so other shepherds are recruited to fill
in.
Sadly, this second type of shepherd
most often is hired by wealthy men who are not shepherds, at all. In fact, most of these men have never even
laid eyes on their flocks. All they care
about is the money that the wool and meat will fetch at the market. These men can be cruel and unforgiving. Because they know nothing of what it means to
be a shepherd, they often ask for the impossible. The second type of shepherd would rather work
for the first type, but a shepherd is the humblest of professions, and a man
without money to buy his own flock must take work where he can find it. Thus it was with John.
John was born the son of a
shepherd. His father had taken John with
him as he watched over the master’s sheep, and taught John everything there was
to know about shepherding. His father
had a problem with strong drink, and most of their meager wages went towards
feeding that insatiable thirst. John’s
mother had died in childbirth, and most people said that John’s father drank to
forget his pain and loneliness.
As a young boy, John would often
find himself alone, at home, way past suppertime. There was a kind couple down the path a way
who would take him in on those nights.
The woman would click her tongue when she saw John walking down the path
towards their humble home, and ask, “Your father’s out drinking again, is
he?” John would just nod, and she’d say,
“Well, come in and get yourself a bowl.
I’ve made too much soup as it is.
You can just help us eat it so it doesn’t go to waste.” John couldn’t remember how the relationship
had begun. For as long as he could
remember he’d walked down that path to the neighbors to eat supper when his
father didn’t return home at night.
Those were actually the good
memories he had from his childhood. As
an adult, he knew just how angelic that old couple was to take in the hungry,
motherless son of a poor shepherd who drank too much. He was certain that the woman began making
extra soup every night just on the chance that he would show up at their door. John made it a habit to pray for the couple’s
souls every night in his private prayers.
The couple had long ago passed away, as had Johns father. The latter having drunk himself to a grave
long before his time. John was left
alone in the world with nothing to his name but the knowledge of shepherding his
father had passed down.
At first, life was very hard. Most young men had letters of introduction,
or at the very least, their parents took them to an employer to work out terms
of employment. John had no
recommendation. The master his father
had worked for had thought that John would turn out to be a drunkard like his
father, and had refused to employ him.
For months, John looked for work as
a shepherd. In the end, he had resorted
to begging for his meals. Begging had
almost become his permanent profession until one day he overheard some men
speaking about needing a few shepherds for a new landlord who had just bought a
large track of land outside of town. The
man was wealthy and lived in another city, but wanted to try his hand in the
wool business. The herd was being
shepherded to the lush hills outside of town as the men spoke, and they were in
dire need of shepherds. Apparently, they
had wasted the time allotted to them to find shepherds, and now they had less
than a day to hire men to do the job.
Both men were dubious when John had
offered his services. By that point, his
clothes had become rags, and he was as dirty as the road he was standing
on. Luckily, the men were desperate
enough to hire him. The terms were not
fair for a man as well versed at shepherding as John was, but they were
generous for a man who looked as desperate as he looked.
John remembered the first meal he
was able to buy for himself. He didn’t
think food could ever taste so good. He
worked for four years for the master, and never once met the man. That was fine by John. He’d lived most of his life alone. The company of the sheep was enough. The flock was large by anyone’s
standards. John worked in tandem with five
other shepherds. There were always two
on duty, and the six would rotate shifts.
He slept on the master’s land when he wasn’t working, and spent as
little money as he could, saving the rest to buy a place and maybe even a flock
of his own someday.
Life was going well until a fateful
night robbed John of what little he had left.
One of the many occupational hazards of a shepherd is thieves. John was watching the sheep when ten horsemen
came galloping over the hills on the other side of the massive flock. The sheep panicked and started to stampede
towards John. Annoyed, John did his best
to contain the flock. Isaac, the other
shepherd on duty, was on the side of the approaching horseman. He rose to meet the horseman, and ask them to
ride around so as to not frighten the flock.
In a flash, metal cleared the scabbard of the closest horseman, and he
cut down Isaac without a word.
John’s mood quickly switched from
annoyed to panic. He turned to run, but
remembered his life of poverty, and decided it would be better to stay and
fight than return to that life. That
decision would forever change his life.
The men didn’t kill John. They
decided, instead, to make sport of him.
He lost a hand and a leg.
The master was so angry with the
shepherds for losing his flock that he fired them all. John had to use all the money he had saved to
pay the physician who saved his life. He
found himself once again with no money, no job, and now he was a cripple. On the bright side, he thought that maybe now
he would make a better beggar.
The life of a beggar was not to be,
though, as one of the other shepherds had saved enough money to buy a small
flock of his own. The man’s name was
Jacob, and he was the only friend John had.
Jacob knew that John was a good shepherd, and invited him to move with
him to his birth town of Bethlehem to help watch his small flock.
At first, John didn’t want to take
the job. He was afraid of letting Jacob
down. He didn’t know how much help he
could be, missing a leg and a hand, but he decided he’d better not let the
opportunity pass. Jacob bought the sheep
in the city Be-er Sheva, and the two herded the small flock the fifty miles to
Bethlehem. It was always better to move
sheep far from where they were raised so that none would return to their old
home. The trip served to prove John
could still be a shepherd.
Walking with a crutch was a
horrible thing, so John used his staff instead.
He had lost his left hand and right leg.
He tried several different ways of walking, but found that he was able
to counter balance his weight as he used the staff as a surrogate leg. The fifty mile trek to their new home in
Bethlehem gave him plenty of practice, but he still grew tired easily, and
could not walk nearly as fast as Jacob.
Jacob was sympathetic of his plight, and slowed the flock to match John’s
pace. The journey took twice as long as
it should have, but at long last they made it to Bethlehem.
John had never been so far from
home. Home. That was a funny concept. John had never felt at home anywhere. He had a roof over his head as a child, but
it wasn’t a home. He had no roof as an
adult, and it wasn’t a home. He didn’t
know what home was. He was comfortable
around Jacob. But John worried what
would happen when Jacob found a woman and decided to marry. John had no more dreams of saving money to
buy his own flock, let alone a plot of land to build a house. He had worked four years for a rich master,
and had barely saved half the money it would take to do such grandiose things. Working for Jacob would mean survival. John would be indebted to the man just for
his meals. He knew that the small flock
would scarcely fetch enough to feed the two, so John would be working for his
meals only. No, he would never know what
home was.
Bethlehem was not like Be-er
Sheva. The local magistrate, King Herod,
was a controlling man. He wouldn’t let
shepherds own land, but he recognized the importance of their work so he
allowed all the shepherds to share the grazing lands around the city. John couldn’t imagine such an arrangement. Shepherds in Be-er Sheva fought over grazing
lands, and they owned the land. He
couldn’t imagine what kind of disputes would arise when nobody owned the
land. Jacob assured him that the shepherds
were quite civil, but John had a hard time believing it.
His first day of work proved to be
difficult. Walking in a straight line
towards a city was one thing. Keeping
track of sheep, and trying to coral them was another. He had to track down two lost sheep on his
first day; one had fallen in a gully, John had no idea how he would get it out
without falling in, himself. Luckily,
Jacob was right about the other shepherds.
One of the other men saw his predicament, and rushed to help. In fact, all of the other shepherds were
nice. The sheep intermingled, and the
shepherds knew their sheep well, and the sheep knew them. When it was time to move a flock, each
shepherd had his own call, and all of his sheep would follow him to their new
grazing spot. John was a bit embarrassed
that he couldn’t tell his sheep from the others, but the other shepherds were
kind, and helped sort them out when they intermingled. When the sheep were grazing, the shepherds
often gathered to talk and share gossip.
John made many friends among the shepherds. They all held him in high regard for being
willing to lay down his life to protect his flock. He felt a sense of brotherhood he’d never
felt before.
Caesar Augustas declared that a
census be taken every fourteen years, and the year John and Jacob came to
Bethlehem happened to fall on a census year.
The Jewish custom was for everyone to return to their lands of birth to
have this census taken, so that families could be counted together. John had no family, so he saw no need to
return to Be-er Sheva. He’d been living
in Bethlehem for a few months now, and counted it as much of a home as any he’d
lived in. The town was flooded with
new-comers, which meant plenty of gossip to be shared by the shepherds. It was a good time for John and his new-found
brotherhood.
John thought that it might be fun
to go into town and see if he could pick up any tales of faraway lands. He worked the night watch, so his day was
free. It took him the better part of the
morning to get into town. As he was
hobbling through the streets on his one good leg, using his shepherd’s staff as
a surrogate leg, a wagon too wide for the small street, and traveling too fast,
barreled down on the poor shepherd. John
did his best to get out of the way, but the wagon wheel’s hub clipped his good
hip, knocking him to the ground, and bruising his hip deeply. John could barely stand afterward. The wagon’s driver didn’t even turn to see if
he was okay. A few of the town’s people
helped him to his feet, but once standing, he was left to fend for
himself.
The journey back to the grazing
fields was a few miles away, and Johns hip was throbbing with pain before he
even made it out of the city. By the
time he made it back to the flock, his shift had long since started. Jacob was annoyed, but when he saw how bad
John was injured, his fury quickly changed to concern. All of the shepherds on the hill that night
gathered around John as Jacob inspected his hip.
As the men were fussing over John,
the night suddenly became bright. The
shepherds looked around in awe. It was
long past sunset, but the sky was as bright as day. They looked up and saw the source of the
light. John could just make out the silhouette
of a man, but it was like trying to look at the sun. He was suddenly overwhelmed with fear. What was happening? He turned away from the man at the center of
the light, feeling insignificant and unworthy to be around such a person.
The man at the center of the light
spoke, “Fear not.”
John was definitely afraid, but the
voice of the man soothed him to the very core.
When he looked upon the man again, the light did not burn his eyes as
much. The man radiated like the sun, but
the light was more than just light. The
light was warm, and soothing. It was a
feeling John had never felt before. If
he had to guess, he would say that this was what love felt like.
“I bring you good tidings of great
joy, which shall be to all people,” the man said. John knew, even with his limited knowledge of
the gospel that this must be a messenger of the lord. An angel of God! “For unto you is born this day in the city of
David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in
swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
A Savior! John had gone to Hebrew school when he was
young, but he never finished. His father’s
fading health meant more work for John, so he took to filling in for his father
instead of going to school. He knew that
a Savior was to be born to free His people, but he couldn’t remember much more
about this Savior.
As John was contemplating the wondrous
news from the angel, the sky was suddenly filled with them. They were singing! At first John was so overwhelmed by the
beauty of the sound of thousands of angelic voices that he couldn’t comprehend
the words.
As the angelic choir sang their
chorus for the third time, John heard the words, “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
The lights in the heavens slowly
dimmed and the stars were shining once again on the lowliest of all men, the
shepherds of the fields. John noticed a
new star shining brighter than the rest.
The star seemed to be stationed directly above Bethlehem, like a beacon
shinning the way to this Savior child.
The shepherds were quick to agree
that they must leave at once to see this marvelous babe. John attempted to stand, but his injured hip
prevented him from doing so. His stomach
sank to his knees as he realized he could not make the journey back to the
city. The other shepherds stopped and
tried to help him to his feet, but John stopped them and said, “You go. I’ll never be able to make the trip with this
injury. Besides, someone has to stay and
watch the sheep.”
Reluctantly, the shepherds all
agreed to let John stay and tend to their flocks. Jacob turned one last time and gave John a
sad smile, and then disappeared into the night.
As he vanished into the night, John felt a warm tear scroll down his
face. He wasn’t mad at his predicament,
just sad that he would miss chance to see this Savior child for himself.
Several months passed since that
fateful night, almost two years, in fact.
John had tried to go to see the babe days later when he could walk
again, but the young couple had left the manger and were nowhere to be
found. His brother-shepherds had told
him all about the child. They were in reverenced
awe as they looked upon the babe. His
mother was more beautiful than any of them could describe, and they said she
was a virgin; that the child was the son of God, himself. John was so happy that his new friends had
had the opportunity to see the babe. He
supposed he’d had a part in that by watching their flocks so that they could
go. He wasn’t jealous of them, but he
was sad he’d missed the opportunity.
As he was thinking about the babe
one morning on his hill, a young couple came hastily from the city, carrying a
baby. They were running from something,
and the fear was painted painfully upon their faces.
“What’s going on,” John asked.
“The King’s gone crazy,” the man
said.
“He’s killing all the children
under the age of two,” the woman added, with tears streaming down her face.
John couldn’t believe that King
Harod would do such a thing, but at the same time, he couldn’t doubt the fear
the young couple were displaying. John
showed the young couple the safest way out of the land, where no guards would
be posted to stop them, and then he hurried back to the city.
When he arrived in the city, there
were guards everywhere. They were
bursting into people’s houses, and to John’s horror, they were, in fact,
killing all of the babies. John saw
several young mothers trying to flee with their children. He was able to gather a few, and smuggle them
out of the city and out of the land through the fields he knew so well.
When John returned again to the city, the sun
had long ago set. He desperately went
looking for more families to save. The
guards had made quick work of the gruesome task, and it was obvious that no
other women would be running with small precious bundles in their arms.
John, felt sick. He could only save half a dozen little
ones. He thought of the hundreds of
other broken families left to morn their loss.
Such promising futures destroyed in moments. He wondered if the Savior child was among
those slain babes. As he hobbled back to
his hill, he heard a cry from the bushes.
John rushed over to find a young mother trying desperately to hush her
young baby. She looked at him with sheer
terror in her eyes.
“I’m here to help you,” John said,
as he slowly approached the young mother.
“There are ways out of the land where the guards will not be looking for
you.”
The mother looked like she wanted
to jump into his arms for comfort, and at the same time, like she wanted to run
for her life. He had never seen such raw
terror in someone’s eyes before.
“I will help you escape this
land. I’m a shepherd. I know the area,” John reassured her. “Follow me, I’ll show you the way.”
The mother cried as relief washed
over her face. “Thank you! Bless you!
Thank you! Thank you,” she uttered over and over.
John rushed as fast as his crippled
body would carry him across the fields with the young mother in tow. When they had reached the edge of the lands controlled
by Harod, John heard the approaching hooves of horses.
“Oh no,” he exclaimed. “They’re coming this way.”
The young mother shrieked in terror
as she started to run. John yelled after
her, “There’s a gully ahead, if you can make it there, jump in and turn left. The soldiers shouldn’t be able to find
you. I’ll try to slow them down.”
He didn’t know if the woman heard
him or not, but he hoped that even if she didn’t, he could stall the soldiers
long enough to allow her to disappear.
The sun was beginning to rise, and the soldiers would have to look into
it to find her. It would make the task
that much more onerous.
John was exhausted. He couldn’t walk anymore. He’d been awake all night for his watch, then
all day and half the next night helping the first group of young families escape,
and the rest of the night running with the last young mother. His knee was quivering under his weight, and
his good arm could scarcely grip his shepherd’s staff.
When he looked up, six armed
soldiers had formed a semi-circle in front of him with their horses. “What can I do for you gentleman,” John
asked, trying to hide the fear in his voice.
“That’s the man,” one of the
soldiers said, pointing at John with his spear.
“He’s the one I saw trying to hide young babies.”
“I don’t know what you’re…”
“No use lying, shepherd. There aren’t many one legged, one hand
shepherds around,” the captain of the guards said. “Where are the babies?”
“I assure you, captain, I have no
babies. No woman would want a crippled
shepherd for a husband,” John said.
The captain had his sword out. Before John could think to respond he saw the
sword rushing towards his head. John
scrunched his eyes shut and braced for impact.
He never felt the impact. He tentatively opened one eye, and then the
other. It was much brighter
outside. So bright he couldn’t see very well. There was a man in front of him, but John’s
eyes were still trying to adjust to the bright light.
“This is the man. The shepherd who wouldn’t leave his flock,”
the man said.
John was feeling warm. He remembered the feeling. It was the same feeling he’d felt when the
angel had visited them in the field.
When he looked at the man again, he recognized him as the same angel who
announced The Savior’s birth.
Another voice, deep and soothing,
said, “Come here, son.”
John looked over to see a man
sitting upon a throne. He was standing
before the man before he even thought to walk over to him.
“My son,” the man said.
“Who are you,” John asked. “Where am I?
What happened to the soldiers?
What happened to the mother and her baby?”
“The mother is fine. You saved her and her child. You saved many children, my son,” the man on
the throne said.
“Dad? Is that you,” John
asked. Looking at the man was hard. He shone brighter than the angel.
The man laughed. “I am your father, but not the man who raised
you on earth.”
“What happened…” John looked down and saw that he had his hand
back. He looked at his leg, and it was
back in place, good as new. John just
stared at his leg, and then at his hand.
“You have saved my children. You were a good shepherd; a shepherd who
wouldn’t leave my flock to the wolves, and so you are with me again.”
“With you…”
With that, God stood and embraced
John. “Welcome home, son.”
John felt his father’s embraced,
and for the first time he was home.
