The Birth by Gene
Edwards
(An excerpt of a great book, by a great story teller, on the birth of Jesus through the eyes of the shepherds and the angels! You will want to read the entirety yourself and read it to children!)
Michael first became
aware that something momentous was about to take place when he felt a strange
compulsion to visit the place of the Door. It was not an area of the heavenlies
that angels often frequented. Why am I
here? He mused to himself. Why am I standing at the passageway to the physical
realm? It had been ages since the Door had opened into that realm. Not
since Malachi the prophet had there been commerce between the two creations. Why, the archangel wondered, has it been so very long since the Most High
God has spoken face to face with anyone living upon the earthen ball?
At that moment
Michael felt a deeper inner stirring. His eyes brightened. He was being called
to the throne. But more, Michael knew, by some inexplicable intuition, that the
passageway between heaven and earth would open again…and soon!...
….The stable was dimly lit by but one small, smoky lamp. A
mat of straw had been laid down near the door so that Mary might have some
small relief from the foul stench of the room. Joseph’s face was ashen, his
entire body trembling. At this moment he could have put up a strong argument
against the whole idea of reproduction.
Azzan, Joseph’s
lifelong (and never wed) friend, stood outside the stable, immobilized and
terrified. Both men listened to the two midwives give Mary all kinds of
instructions, none of which made any sense to either of them. But Joseph did
hear one statement he fully understood.
“I have been a
midwife for fifty years, and I have delivered thousands of babies. I am telling
you, this young girl-bearing this child-is a virgin.” The struggle between pain
and birth continued for several hours as Mary’s labor pangs came in ever
shorter cycles. Nine months earlier the Door in the heavenlies had opened into
Mary’s womb; and there brought God into the visible creation. Now it was almost
time for that same womb to open and become, thereby, the entrance through which
God might come forth upon this very planet.
At last, the Door
opened, and like any other child ever born he was pushed forth in harsh agony,
deep red blood, and from an envelope of protective, water. He who had formed
the world now made entrance into that world; not in the presence of trumpets
and cymbals nor in a king’s palace. His reception was not as one royal born, to
be arrayed in find garments. Rather, his
vestments were bands of gauze, his bed and horse’s feeding trough. His lowly
entrance was a dugout on the side of a hill, which some might go so far as to
call a barn.
The baby cried. The
mother laughed and cried. The midwives smiled in wonder at a child so strangely
born. And Joseph slipped to the dirt floor and wept.
The infant’s birth,
except for the modest surroundings, was really no different from that of all
who have abandoned the womb and entered earth’s dull light. Except of course, that a giant of an angel stood just
outside the stable door, poised to do battle with anything created that might
have menaced with incarnation of the God of all creation.
But with the baby’s
first cry, Michael knew it was time to bring the good news to his fellows in
the other realm. He hurried to this task, for he sensed that Gabriel was about
to lose control of exactly one half of the heavenly host.
Gabriel was doing
fairly well at controlling the 500 million angels in his charge. But the other
500 million, in Michael’s absence, were on the verge of chaos.
The excitement was
understandable. This was one of the few occasions in all their long history
when all the angels of heaven were in
one place. And not since the creation of man had such numbers of angels been
invited to pass through the Door onto earth in a visible form. Nonetheless,
Gabriel did not want to see a total breakdown of angelic order, and everything was
pointing in just such a direction.
To Gabriel’s relief,
the Door opened slightly, and Michael, his eyes ablaze with joy, stepped into
the heavenlies. He raised both hands above his head, his face enraptured, his
voice filled with glee.
“The child is born!”
Excitement gave way
to pandemonium as every angel pressed toward the Door. Michael called for
order, and though each and every angel was certain he had heartily obeyed, one
would be hard pressed to actually call the scene orderly.
Michael looked toward
the Door in hope that it may have opened wider. It had not, but he did notice
that it had moved. It seemed to have come to rest in a pasture somewhere. Michael’s
only thought was, If the Door swings open
in a pasture, it had better be a very large pasture, with room enough for one
billion angels!
He decided to
investigate. Just as he stepped onto the threshold of the Door, he was certain
he heard two men having a very intense argument…
The place was a
pasture just outside the village of Bethlehem. It was evening. The sky was
clear and the stars bright. Several shepherds sat around a small fire that was
dwarfed by a large boulder nearby. Two of the men, Rabof and Deruel, were,
indeed, having a very animated discussion.
“Rabof, you are a stupid, illiterate shepherd. Of course
angels have wings!”
“You are more stupid, and more illiterate, and an even more
ignorant shepherd. Angels do not have
wings!”
With this, the two
men began hurling passages of Scripture at one another. When this source of
information ran dry, they began, as do all men, to invent Scripture. That in
turn gave way to conjecturing, reasoning, and at last, flights of imagination
that had little or nothing to do with the topic at hand.
What these shepherds
did not know was that a great and mysterious portal was about to open very near
them-in fact, right beside the large boulder that casts a shadow upon their tight circle. Nor could
they have possibly known that at that very moment citizens of the other realm
were jammed around the Door, anxious to charge through to make an announcement
that was doubtless the greatest news ever to be proclaimed.
Sure enough, the Door
did open…ever so slightly. Because it would be his appointed task to cross the
threshold first, Gabriel peeked through the small opening.
Approximately one
billion angels crammed behind Gabriel, trying to see whatever it was that met
his eye. The archangel gestured for silence and for some much-needed angelic
self-control.
“The Door is opening upon a pasture,” he observed. There was
a moment’s pause. He then exclaimed, “I see the village of Bethlehem in the
distance!”
A moment of sheer
bedlam followed as angels one and all cried out, “The city of David! The City
of the King!”
Gabriel waved his hand for silence, then continued.
“There are shepherds just beyond the Door. Five of them. I
cannot believe they are just sitting there! Do they not know they are but a
short distance from the site of the greatest occurrence of all time and
eternity? Why do they not go into the village and see what God has—“
Suddenly, the Door cracked open a little more. Spontaneously
Gabriel and a few others standing near him darted through the opening, while
nearly one billion of their angelic kin tried desperately to follow.
Rabof, oblivious to the angelic activity, continued his
debate. “You tell me just one place in Scripture or anywhere else where angels—“He
stopped abruptly. “What is that? I mean….who
is that? I….I have never seen anything like you in my whole life!”
As if out of nowhere, a giant of a creature, with a soft
light glowing through his white garment, came to stand before the five
shepherds.
“Why are you sitting here?” challenged Gabriel.
Not a shepherd moved.
“Why are you sitting here?” the angel repeated, “Get up!
Run! Go into Bethlehem and see the wondrous thing God has done!”
Stark terror froze the shepherds in their places, but the
angel went on.
This
the most joyful news ever announced, and it is for everyone! The Savior---yes,
the Messiah, the Lord—has been born tonight in Bethlehem! How will you
recognize him? You will find a baby wrapped in a blanket, lying in a manger.
It was obvious to the five men that this huge creature was
about to continue when the most phenomenal thing happened. Another of his kind appeared
beside him. Then another. And another. And yet another.
Meanwhile, in the
other realm, angelic order was once more about to disintegrate. It was every
angel for himself. The entire angelic host, one billion strong, was pushing its
way through the Door, which, mercifully, had finally opened wide.
The first angels
through the Door encircled the shepherds. Those following thereafter filled the
immediate surroundings, always careful not to step on any of the sheep. A few
of the angels ascended the towering boulder.
Still the citizens of
the heavenlies poured through the Door. Soon the white-robed visitors had
filled the entire pasture land. On they came. Innumerable. Now the hills
surrounding the pastures were filled.
And yet came more,
until it seemed every inch of earth from the hills surrounding Bethlehem to the
outskirts of Jerusalem were filled with messengers from heaven. They were
everywhere, as far as shepherds’ eyes could see. Mile upon mile the pastures
and hills glowed with the light of these luminous creatures.
As the angels themselves
began to take in the magnificence of this unprecedented sight, they each began
to shout with uninhibited joy. Pandemonium and delight wed in an exquisite moment
of rapture. The sound was like a roar of a thousand seas. But as the discordant
shouts of joy billowed forth, they began to change and become one colossal
anthem of adoration and praise.
Glory,
glory, glory!
Glory
to God!
Glory
to God who is
in
the highest. And here on earth, peace!
Peace
has come among men
With
whom He is pleased.
The shepherds, left
with no other choice, fell on their faces, stunned by the glory of their
surroundings.
On and on the angels
sang. Dumbfounded shepherds, finally adjusting to the impossible, rose to their
feet and quite spontaneously joined in the chorus, though they still had no
idea what is was they rejoiced in, and cared even less. After all, in the midst
of such a scene, anything less than full-throated praise was simply
unthinkable.
Still, the shepherds
could not but wonder. What on earth is
this? A sudden sea of strange beings. Who are these creatures with the glories
of heaven on their faces and in their song? What are they doing here?
Once more Gabriel
called out to the shepherds, but this time his hand pointed straight at them
and his voice left no room for debate. This was a command!
“Why are you standing here? Go into the city of David and
see what God has done!”
With that word given,
Gabriel and one billion other angels returned to their own habitat, there to
continue their glorious anthem. But as the last angel passed through the Door,
he noticed that it did not entirely close. A ray of light from the brightness
of the glory of heaven seeped through that small opening and poured out into
the visible realm.
The angel also
noticed that the Door began to move again. If he was not mistaken, it was moving
eastward. Could he possibly trust his eyes? Beneath the sky and clouds…surely
not! Was that not Babylon he saw?
And why, he wondered,
was the Door left slightly ajar? If that really was Babylon down there, and if
the light of heaven really was seeping through the doorway into the skies above
Babylon, surely such a thing would cause great consternation in the city below.
And, what of the shepherds?
Now finding themselves alone, they struck out for Bethlehem to see what God had
done. Inexplicably, they ran toward a barn on the outskirts of their village.
When at last they reached the entrance to the stable, they stopped to catch
their breath.