What was it like on the outskirts of Bethlehem?

Modern living provides numerous luxuries and activities. An endless parade of entertainment, distraction and diversion is at our beck and call. Shopping centers and malls abound, a cadre of restaurants surrounding each. There’s a club meeting one night, the kid’s practice the next and the church’s covered-dish supper the night after that.

Satellite television beams hundreds of crystal clear channels into our living rooms. A few are even worth watching. Movies, music, and information stream from high-speed Internet. A universe of information and entertainment is a mouse click away. Ours is a different world. The changes in the last forty years alone are staggering.

During my childhood, dining out meant a trip to the local café or fish camp. There were few, if any, family steakhouses. And there certainly wasn’t a restaurant in every corner of the mall parking lot. In fact, there wasn’t even a mall.

In the late 1960s the Internet was a military secret. Television stations were few and color sets were uncommon. I watched Neill Armstrong take “one giant leap for mankind” . . . and I watched it in black and white. Our set could tune two VHF channels.

Just as today’s world has surpassed my childhood, so had that time advanced over the previous generations, when television itself was rare or nonexistent. People received their entertainment from the radio voices of Amos and Andy and the Jack Benny Show. Their information came from newspapers, books and magazines. The 20th Century was change, with less than 100 years separating the heyday of the buckboard from the reusable spacecraft.

Now, you may wonder what this walk down nostalgia lane has to do with Bethlehem. Very little, in a direct sense. But it does serve to compare the rapid advancement in our lifestyles with the primitive shepherds’ experience, recorded in Luke’s Gospel, that first Christmas night. The thought came to me as I read the story for the umpteenth time, not that you can read it too often.

Some Bible translations place the shepherds “in the same country”; others say they were “in the fields nearby.” Either way it is evident that they were on the outskirts of Bethlehem, which had nothing in common with modern suburbia. There was no reflection of Bethlehem’s lights against the night sky. There was only a darkness that today’s suburbanite can’t comprehend.

The shepherds may have kindled a small campfire and lit a torch or two. But they wouldn’t have stayed very close to that light. It would have compromised their night vision, making it difficult to spot thieves and predators, which was their purpose for being there. The only prevailing light came from the stars and the moon.

No distant train whistle pierced the silence. No car horns honked and no jets passed overhead. There were no blaring boom boxes, blinding televisions, or ringing cell phones. The only sound was the shepherds’ conversation and the soft bleats from the flocks. They are alone on a dark and silent night.

Without warning a celestial being illuminated the night sky. The angel Gabriel declared the long-awaited Messiah’s arrival to the accompaniment of an angelic chorus. How would those shepherds, unaccustomed to such brilliant displays, have reacted? Luke tells us they were “sore afraid.”

Considering the societal transformations and technological advancements we’ve experienced it is difficult, if not impossible, for us to relate to the lives of those shepherds. We think black and white television is archaic and cell phones are indispensable. It’s unlikely we can appreciate the scene that long ago night on Bethlehem’s hillside pastures.

Feast, my friends, this Christmas Day! Gather by the fire. Unwrap the gifts. Amidst the celebration save a minute to ponder the shepherd’s experience. Our lives are so accustomed to sound, light, and distraction, perhaps we can’t comprehend the powerful, majestic display that long ago night. But we can try.