“So there was a sheep in the stable, too, was there?” said the boy. “You’ve carved a sheep.”
Mr Butterfield held a finger against the side of his nose and winked. “Ah! You don’t put sheep in a stable. This sheep was out of doors,” he said.
Just up the way – outside town, beyond a fold or two of hills – some shepherds were sitting on a hillside, all huddled up in their cloaks against the midnight cold. They nodded and dozed.
Then all of a sudden, a light fell through the sky: a shooting star – that’s what they thought. But the light grew bigger, formed itself into a shape, hurtled down on them, closer and closer. An eagle after the sheep! one thought, and fumbled for his slingshot.
Then the light washed over them, and the sheep glowed snowy white in the brightness, and the shepherds folded their arms over their heads and fell on their faces.
“Don’t be afraid,” called the figure hanging in mid-air on outstretched wings. “Wonderful news! Wonderful! The Saviour of the world is born!” The shepherds lifted first one eyelid, then two. The sheep were gazing upwards, too, yellow eyes changed to gold. “Over there! In Bethlehem! Lying in a cattle manger!” cried the angel. “Go and see for yourselves!” Within a single beat of his outspread wings, the angel was no longer alone. Others, as numberless as starlings at dusk, were there with him, hovering, silvery and singing, high over the sheepy hill: “GLORY TO GOD! PEACE TO HIS PEOPLE ON EARTH!” The singing was as loud as cheering, and there was a kind of music, too, as if someone was using the moon for a gong and was jangling all the stars.
Higher and higher the angel flock flew, shrinking to the size and brightness of fireflies. Darkness washed back again over the landscape in a flood. The sheep shuddered.
But the shepherds were already leaping and loping downhill, stumbling into rabbit holes, laughing and shouting out to one another, “Let’s go and see!”
“Wait till I tell the wife!”
“Wait till I tell my children!”
Mr Butterfield rested his hand on his carving of the manger. “They say the animals spoke on the night Jesus was born. But if they did, they spoke very softly: there was the baby to think of, after all…”
Joseph had stuffed clean straw into the animals’ feed box, and laid the newborn child in that, for a makeshift cradle. Mary was exhausted, but she didn’t get much sleep that night. The baby had just been laid in the manger when the shepherds arrived. Sandals slapping in the yard, eyes still full of light, they bundled inside, noisy with excitement – then suddenly clapped their hands over their mouths, dumbstruck.
They hadn’t realized it would be like this: a mucky stable, an ordinary family caught in a crisis – people just like them. The baby looked as small and as feeble as any newborn lamb. And yet for this, those angelic hosts, those creatures of light, those heavenly messengers had sung and danced across the sky, dazzling the dark!
Shyly the shepherds explained themselves, twisting their fingers into nervous knots, apologizing. Then they knelt down, before their trembling knees could give way. And their eyes and minds drank in the wonder of it – that they had been fetched by angels to see this newborn baby king.
“You tell it as if you were there,” said the boy.
“While I’m carving this shepherd and his sheep, I am there. That’s why it’s such a treat and a blessing, my line of work.”
“But your shepherd wasn’t a relation. Jesus wasn’t related to any shepherd – unless you count King David.”
“Ah! but this shepherd of mine, he’s not just the Christmas shepherd.”
“He isn’t?”
“No! When Jesus had grown into a man, he called himself the ‘Good Shepherd’. He told a story about a shepherd with a big flock – a hundred sheep. Seems this shepherd loved his sheep so much that when just one went missing, he went out and searched and searched until he found it and brought it safe home. ‘I am that good shepherd.’ That’s what Jesus said. He was trying to explain how he’d come to look after people – to rescue those who were lost. And whenever he explained anything, he used a story.”
“So Jesus told stories, too.”
Mr Butterfield was deep in thought. “Huh? Ooh, yes. He was forever telling stories! Stories about sheep, stories about parties; stories about money and friends; finding things, losing things… I suppose he grew up listening to the same stories I’ve been telling you, and it made a storyteller out of him. Besides… how could I leave out the shepherds? They were witnesses! They were there! They saw what happened!”
“So,” said the boy. “Make me see.”