Doesn’t it sometimes seem that we live in preposterous times? Leaders do things that make no sense…People choose the way of war over the way of peace…The children of Abraham refuse to see that they are sisters and brothers…And then of course there’s all this talk about the Messiah…

The first time I remember hearing about him was at dinner one evening. My mother’s brother, Aaron…. When he wasn’t around, my father called him a radical. He was always talking about the Messiah who would come and free us from Roman rule. My mother would always cringe when he talked like that. My father would start talking about the quality of the grass in the grazing lands outside of town…I knew it was something he didn’t want to talk about.

But all that changed that night. I was eight years old. There was a gathering of the clan in town, I don’t remember exactly why…I just know there were so many cousins in our little house that I had to go stay in the fields with my older brothers and my dad.

It was really dark out there, over the foothills from town, and then, in a moment, out of the darkness, I remember this light…so bright…bright as a hundred suns. I remember that I looked around at my father and my brothers—surely they would know what was going on…but all I saw on their faces was terror…Caleb, my oldest brother was shaking.

And then there was this voice…at least I think it was a voice…I can’t really tell you if it was a voice I heard with my ears or a voice I heard inside my head…but it said very simply…very calmly…”Do Not Be Afraid”….I almost laughed. THAT was supposed to make me not afraid?

But then I looked toward the light again—and memory might be playing tricks on me—but I saw the loving face of my grandmother smiling at me…and suddenly there was this sense of calm…a reminder of her love sort of washed over me.

The voice was speaking again…about a child…and that word my uncle used all the time…Messiah… Deliverer… Savior… I didn’t really understand, but the grown ups seemed to.

And then…it was as if that voice was suddenly coming from every direction at once…in front and behind, on my left and my right…in my head and in my fingers and toes…and there was singing …I don’t really remember what they sang…I just remember hearing another word I didn’t hear that often…one they used in temple sometimes, one my father used in Sabbath prayers…”Shalom”….Peace.

I didn’t go into the city with the rest of them, hunting for this child the voice talked about…someone had to stay with the sheep after all…Caleb told me later…they found a family in one of the caves at the edge of town behind the public house…The baby was actually sleeping in a cow stall…the clothes of the family were like ours…poor folks' clothes.

That baby certainly wasn’t the kind of person my uncle talked about when he went on and on about the Messiah….he was always talking about King David and King Solomon and the how the Messiah would come in power with legions of soldiers and wipe out the Romans…It seemed silly that this baby they were talking about was that same Messiah…but then I remembered what my mother told me…that David had been a shepherd too.

My friends weren’t impressed with the story when I told them what happened that week, though some of their father’s had been in the fields too that night…I remember exactly what they said…preposterous…You know things don’t happen that way…

BUT I WAS THERE…

By the time I was 13 and had been sent to apprentice as a baker with mother’s other brother in Jerusalem, I wasn’t really sure if it was all just a dream—nothing had changed really…the soldiers were still everywhere…we still had to pay taxes that took almost everything we had. And so I settled into life in the big city…sending home a few Denari whenever I could. I spent my life making bread…marking the seasons and years with the special loaves we would make for the celebrations... The rich breads of Purim…the unleavened bread of Passover…season after season…

The Romans were in complete control…despite the crazy plans of a few radicals like my uncle Aaron that never came to anything….The government called people like him terrorists…and we lived in constant fear that he’d be arrested and end up on the martyr’s hill like so many others…I never heard much more talk of this supposed messiah for the next 30 years…began to doubt even my own memories…was it all something my father and uncles invented…had I convinced myself it was true to escape the terror I saw around me…And then…we started hearing about a healer…a man called Joshua who was down in Galilee. There was talk that he might be the deliverer. And we secretly hoped…But how would anyone have the power to overcome the Roman legions…

One night at the temple, I overheard someone talking about this new Rabbi from Galilee…and how he was spending a lot of time talking about Peace…that word again…they said he was talking about a coming reign of peace…And I remembered the song that night… …Peace….But how could we be delivered through peace? It’s preposterous…things just don’t happen that way…

I was there that day when he came into the city. It was so joyful…Here was our deliverer….the new prophet…the new Messiah…It was a wonderful day…full of hope and excitement…and just a little fear….The Romans..and the leaders in the temple didn’t seem quite sure about what to do about all of this…But I had work to do….Passover was coming and there was much bread to bake…

I met two of his followers that week…They came in for bread for the Passover meal…I don’t mind telling you I took extra care with that bread…By that time, though people were starting to talk….He wasn’t acting like a revolutionary…he wasn’t raising an army…he wasn’t being the Messiah that everyone expected…He seemed to be offending all the wrong people….the priests and the wealthy patrons of the temple. My apprentice came in one morning full of the events of the night before, when he had heard this Joshua …how he had stood in the temple and talked again of God’s reign of peace…and I remembered again that song ringing in my head.

You’ve heard about the rest of it I’m sure…the arrest…the execution…it was terrible…so many crushed hopes…so much bitterness that he wasn’t going to overthrow the Romans….But have you heard the stories? They say his tomb is empty…that he has been seen…

When I heard, the first words out of my mouth were…"That’s preposterous…things just don’t happen this way"….and then I remembered.