WELCOME EVERYBODY

By John Santosuosso

 When I was a kid I can remember an exciting day that my siblings and I had awaited with eagerness for some time. We had been invited to the home of a working friend of my father to see a truly amazing wonder. This family had a television set! Further, it was not one of those seven inch screen sets that most of those very few who had TV possessed. This one had a full ten inch screen! We waited politely and patiently for the station to sign on, which most did at 5 pm. Finally the moment had arrived, and we were going to be treated to an old Western movie starring none other than Hoot Gibson!

It was not too long after this that my family got its own TV. While I am sure I am merging various times and events together, it still seemed that we received mostly old Westerns with none other than Hoot Gibson. Now again I am certain I am mixing plots of various films, but it felt like often there were cattle ranchers who were angry with a bunch of sheep herders who had moved into the area. The ranchers seemed prosperous but angry. The sheep herders were anything but prosperous and seemed helpless. The ranchers claimed that grazing sheep destroyed the prairie grass, and they were determined to run the herders and their animals out of town, and they did not care much how they might do that. Somehow Hoot always showed up and somehow saved the sheep herders from destruction, and the ranchers were able to live with the result. However, come the next film, and the sheep would be in trouble again.

In the Gospel story of the birth of Jesus, it is only Luke (2:8-20) who has anything to say about shepherds. They are out watching their flocks at night, lest some harm come to their sheep. In the time of Jesus, shepherds were not really held in any higher esteem than in the time of Hoot Gibson. They are pretty low on the social scale, probably smell somewhat like their animals, and are not exactly the most educated folks in town. However, an amazing thing happens! Luke says that an angel came looking for them and told them to get into town and see the baby Jesus, who is the Messiah!

Well, when shepherds encounter an angel they know this is pretty serious business, and they rushed into town. Given that they were shepherds it is rather astonishing that Mary and Joseph let them anywhere near their baby! However, they did, and the shepherds go and tell anybody who will listen. I suspect at that point Heaven must have smiled. This Messiah was different. This was a Messiah who would grow up and bring everyone into his circle, including those low on the social scale and even those who were the outcasts of society. Luke includes shepherds in his story for a very important reason.

What about Matthew? Before we get to his message, I want to tell you about a couple of folks I encountered some years ago. One was very unhappy with her trip to Italy. She exclaimed, "Why, they didn't speak English there." Another was frustrated with the metric system, and thought the rest of the world should junk it and learn out system. Their world views we might say were just a bit provincial. However, Matthew's certainly was not. In Matthew (2:1-12) wise men from the East were puzzled. They were more properly known as magi, and they most likely were from Persia. Magi were astrologers, and so they studied the stars. According to Matthew they were puzzled. One star would not behave as it should and kept wandering. So they decided to follow it, and you know the rest of the story. But possibly there is one thing often overlooked. The magi were from Persia. This amazing Messiah loved everybody and belonged exclusively to nobody. It is something Isaiah had tried to explain centuries earlier. The world needed to hear it again. Wherever you are, whomever you are, the Messiah is willing to claim you as one of his own.

A few years ago I found myself in Germany's Cologne Cathedral. If you go there you cannot help but see a magnificent gold sarcophagus. Supposedly it contains the bones of the three magi (Matthew never says how many there were). I cannot vouch for the authenticity of this claim, but I found myself quietly singing to myself "We Three Kings of Orient Are." It really does not matter what is actually in that box. Jesus is too powerful for anything to contain Him. " For to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the

Messiah, the Lord."

Merry Christmas, Everybody