I have always loved the shepherds.  Perhaps it is the West Texas in me.  San Angelo, my home town, was the wool capital of the world!  (It’s a shock I know!).  Or perhaps it’s because that frowzy, scruffy crew were the most unlikely characters to be visited by the Angels and featured in the story of that holy night.  They were “out of the box” sort of people and I love that.

(from “The Story of Christmas” by Felix Hoffmann)

Frederick Buechner, in his book “The Magnificent Defeat” imagines a first person account of the night the Angels came…

The shepherd goes on to say that the emptiness of the air suddenly became brightness everywhere.  Silence turned into the beating of thousands of wings…and voices like trumpets.  “The words were something like what I’d yelled with my mouth full of bread.  ‘By God, it’s good brothers!  The crust.  The mud.  Everything.  Everything!'”

The scriptures tell us in Luke, chapter 2 that the shepherds took off running to Bethlehem.  I can only imagine their unhindered, uncensored release of emotion at the joy of experiencing Angels and seeing the Christ Child in the manger…knowing their Savior!  Perhaps it looked like this…

Or like this…

(from “My Son, My Savior” by Calvin Miller, artist Ron DiCianni)

Or even like this…

(from “The Nativity”, illustrated by Julie Vivas)

Now, in case you are wondering about the title of this blog post…I evidently signed up for Dictionary.com and new words come to me each day.  Many I do not recognize, but when “ripsnorter” popped up one day I had to smile.  It was a term I knew well.  Out in West Texas we might say, “It was a ripsnorting good time”.  You just let go and have the time of your life.  Well, yes!  The shepherds…the unabashed joy of it all!  They left that cradle to run tell the world with exuberance, glorifying and praising God for all they had seen and heard.  “By God, it’s good!  Everything!”

I say, let them ripsnort all they want!  Their joy is contagious!

nk

Pondering…

Are you in any way like the shepherds?