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words of the angel were not “Fear not.” Only once did it happen that the angel of the Lord greeted one of the children of men, and this young girl did not say to the tremendous heavenly guest in the usual bashful way, “Oh, no, no sir, not you should greet me, but I have to greet you first.” No, she listened to the greeting, and then she only pondered in her heart what it might mean. For in this one case the angel of the Lord was greeting Mary of Nazareth.
    But the shepherds were afraid with the fear of Samson’s parents. How must that have been when the brightness of God shone round about them? It is quite good to stop for a moment at such expressions and let our imagination take over. What have we seen in our life which we would call bright? The noonday sun on a summer’s day on top of a glacier? The explosion of an atomic bomb? Compared with the “brightness of God,” they must be like the flicker of a little candle. And this is what the shepherds saw. And what did the angel himself look like? The shepherds don’t tell, but Isaiah, hundreds of years before them, had once had a look at the seraphim and described them: “Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew” (Isa. 6:2).
    And who was this angel? We don’t know for sure, but tradition has it that it was Gabriel, the angel of the incarnation. Now the angel talks; and again let us use our imagination and think of different voices we have heard and which we still remember for their beauty of tone. And again we may be sure that this angelic voice ringing out loud and reassuringly through the night must have been more beautiful that anything we can remember. “Fear not,” the angel said, “for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10–11; KJV). It is true that these shepherds were illiterate, and for this they were cursed by the scribes. But this message they did understand, because they had been waiting all their lives for this Christ the Lord, that He might come and redeem them from the unbearable burdens which the Pharisees themselves would not deign to carry.
    “And this shall be a sign unto you,” continued the angel. “Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12; KJV). Now the shepherds knew they would not have to go into town and knock from door to door. If He was lying in a manger, it could only be in a certain cave not far away. So the Messiah had come — not as a king on horseback, and not like Melchisedec appearing in great dignity suddenly and mysteriously, but as a little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, exactly as one of their own children was wrapped up and carried around by their wives.
    The very moment when the great angel had finished, his message there burst suddenly forth a torrent of heavenly music, and when the shepherds looked up in still more wonder and awe, they saw what the evangelist would describe as a “multitude of the heavenly host” (Luke 2:13; KJV). Daniel of old, when he had once had a similar vision, tried to describe it: “A stream of fire issued and came forth from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him” (Dan. 7:10). That must be about a “multitude of the heavenly host.” And they were now “praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men’ ” (Luke 2:13–14). What a choir! And this was the only time the heavenly multitudes are known to have chanted for the children of men. When Isaiah heard them, he said: “And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.’ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called” (Isa. 6:3–4). Again, we might stop for a moment and think of the