the second christmas: zeb and barna

While much has been written about the first Christmas, the retelling of the second Christmas has been a mystery, until now…

Zeb, do you know what today is?

Tuesday.

No. I mean a year ago today.

Barna… don’t say another word. Nothing happened, it was a dream.

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.

Yada, yada, yada. I am not listening to you.

I think about them every day.

The angels?

No. That family. The girl. That baby. He was there, wrapped in cloths and lying in the manger… just like we know he would be. He looked at me.

He did not.

Yes. Zeb. He looked inside me. Like he knew me… he could feel the wind burn on my cheeks... the isolation and emptiness of my life.

Barna… there was no family… there was no manger… it was bad cheese. We hallucinated the whole thing.

You told everyone! Glory to God. Peace on earth. We told people – and they believed us. Us! They knew it was true. That God was with us. Zeb, you went home for the first time in twelve years… you even spoke to your father.

He laughed at me.

What? You never told me that.

Yeah. He was relentless. Every night at dinner he would make mock angel noises. He introduced me to his friends as his ‘crazy, shepherd son’. He said I was spending too much time alone with sheep… he made me stay with them for two weeks.

Two weeks? I thought your dad had kicked you out. That he wasn’t speaking to you.

Yeah, well, I guess we’re over that.

It’s like they said, then.

What?

Peace. On earth.

… to be continued…