“My town was overrun.  Casaer gave an order for all his world to be counted for tax purposes.  That meant everyone had to go back to their ancestorial city.  For most people around the empire, no journey was required.  But our people had been scattered from centuries of war, conquest, and exile. 

My name is Zadok.  I live in Bethlehem, the ancestorial home of David, the great King of Israel.  My quiet life, like all my neighbors, was turned upside down by Casaer’s order.  Thousands of people are flooding our little village.  Camping space around the square ran out a week ago.  People are renting out space in their homes, their barns, everywhere.  In my own home, there are now three distant cousins and their families, coming from Egypt, Galilee, and Antioch.  Another cousin is staying in the front part of the house with his family, where we normally shelter the cow and the donkey.  People are constantly coming and going as they complete the registration process. 

Like all my neighbors, my wife and I are cooking and selling food to outsiders, who neglected to pack enough for a long stay.  This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.  In one week, we have made more than all we made last year from our crops and flocks.  But after weeks of this, we are tired and are ready to have our house and our lives back. 

The strangest thing happened a couple of days ago.  A young couple, from up north, friends of friends, came to us and begged for a place to stay.  The young woman was obviously pregnant, and my wife’s practiced eye noticed the baby had already dropped.  But we had no room.  The house was crowded, and the only space left was our own.  There was no room even where the animals normally stayed, for another cousin had arrived earlier in the day to claim that remaining space. 

I was about to turn the couple away when I remembered the grotto.  Behind the house, about thirty feet, the hill had an indentation.  It was not much, but we had moved the animals there, to shelter them from the wind and the rain.  I offered the space to the young couple for a shekel a night and to my surprise, they agreed on the price. 

Evening had fallen when my wife heard the sounds from the grotto – panting, moaning.  She went out and came back swiftly to get some water and a towel.  The baby had decided it was time to be born.  I stayed at the house, to settle down the families there, and then to sleep myself.  I knew I would be no help at the grotto.  What did I know of the ways of women in labor? 

My wife returned after an hour or two and shook me awake.  “A baby boy!  Nice and healthy.  They are going to call him ‘Jesus,’ she said.  Sleepily I mumbled, “They should name him after me.  After all, it is my grotto.”  My wife sighed and said, “Poor thing.  The only place to put him was that old stone manger.”  Sleep closed back in on my tired body like a welcome friend. 

It was two in the morning when I heard the rumble of voices out back, the excited voices of men.  At first, I thought the King had sent troops to kill us all, but I heard no shrieks of pain or cries of battle.  Instead, I caught phrases: “An angel… Good news… born in the city of David… A Savior, a Messiah, a Leader… A whole army of angels shouting… Glory to God… Peace on earth… Grace to all.”   

I had to get up and see what was going on.  Tiptoeing over sleeping forms, I made my way out back to see what was happening.  My eyes adjusted to the darkness, to the glow of fire in the grotto.  I recognized a couple of local shepherds; I did not know them well, but I knew them by their smell.  When they saw me, they rushed to tell me the same fragmented story: ““An angel… Good news… born in the city of David… A Savior, a Messiah, a Leader… A whole army of angels shouting… Glory to God… Peace on earth… Grace to all.”  But they added, “Imagine… coming to tell us… shepherds… the nobodies.” 

When the noise got too loud, the young mother would look at the new father, and with his squeaky fifteen-year-old voice, he said, “Quiet down fellows.  Mary needs her rest and please do not wake the baby.”  The voices would quiet for a moment, and then the same fragments would be spoken, the story would be told again, and the volume would increase with each telling. 

The young Dad, Joseph was his name, finally got us all to leave.  The shepherds were still talking so loud they must have awakened everyone in town.  When I got back to house, the sleeping forms were stirring.  I laid back down on my pallet and closed my eyes.  Sleep, however, would not come.  My mind kept going back to the disjointed story of the shepherds and the baby born behind my house.   

I wondered, what exactly was going on out back?  Angels? Savior? Born in Bethlehem?  Could God be at work right behind my house?   

If God was doing something out back behind my house, would anything ever be the same?”