“And now, we stand before the mystery of God…”

by the Right Reverend Thomas Clark Ely, Bishop of Vermont

Mountain Echo, January 2004

The Advent prophets have spoken their word of judgment, promise, hope, and assurance. John the Baptizer has announced a way through the rubble of broken human lives and hearts, proclaiming the cleansing gift of forgiveness and the refreshing waters of a new Jordan. Elizabeth, Zechariah, Mary and Joseph have said “yes” to the surprising ways of God. And now, we stand before the mystery of God in this season of Incarnation and hear God’s Word announced to the shepherds by the angels as “Good News of a great joy.”

The angelic announcement of God’s gift of love and hope to the world—to all its people and for all time—comes first not to political or religious leaders gathered at some convention, not to managers or executives off on a junket somewhere, not to tourists or those in town for the weekend, not even to those gathered in homes or synagogues for worship, but to a group of hard working shepherds, “out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night.” God has come among us—in the flesh, born of a human mother—and the first people to get the Good News of this great joy are a bunch of people at work!

Herbert O’Driscoll writes, “They were living in the fields, and a dangerous living it was. They were tough men in a harsh world where encounters with angels were few and far between, if ever. Encounters were far more likely to be with rustlers and thieves who slit throats in the night hours and made off with a flock. Something formidable and impressive would be needed to get a response from these men, let alone terrify them—in the way Luke describes.”
We read and hear a lot today about “ministry in daily life,” about the understanding and expectation that baptismal ministry is about more than those ministries we do “in the church,” as important as those ministries are. Ministry in daily life suggests that it is in the marketplace of our daily life and living—“out in the fields,” if you will—that we are called to acknowledge and witness to God’s presence and reconciling love. At home, at work, at school and in our communities, we are invited to “see God’s hand at work in the world about us.” And we are invited not only to take notice of that “glory of God,” but to “go tell it on the mountain,” to share what we see and hear as “Good News of a great joy,” what we encounter and experience first hand of “God and sinners reconciled.”

As the Church, we are a people both gathered and sent. There is a familiar phrase sometimes posted on the doors of churches for people to see as they leave from worship services. It says, “The worship is over, let the service begin.” My hope for us in this season of Incarnation, and beyond, is that our worship will be full of joy and celebration and that our service will be the incarnation of that joy and celebration as we do the hard work of reconciliation, justice and peace-making “out in the fields,” where “we live and move and have our being.”

“And the shepherds said to one another, let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us. So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.”

Glory to God!
+Thomas