I’ve always loved the Christmas story. It’s one of my favorite things to read in the Gospels. My personal favorite version is in Luke.
One of my favorite parts of the Christmas story is how many people were directly impacted with what happened during this miracle.
Obviously the whole world was impacted, but I’m talking about those people that had front row seats. People like Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zacharia, Herod, the Wise Men, the Inn Keeper who had no space or the Shepherds who saw Heaven rip open into our world, proclaiming what had just happened.
We don’t ever pay much attention to these people. But I’ve always wondered what it would have been like if one of those people had written down what they experienced that night. What story did the shepherds tell gathered around the fire with those who weren’t around… “I was there! I saw it all, here’s what happened…”
What would those stories be like?
That’s why I always love coming across authors or books where people have written from these imagined perspectives. Obviously the stories they right are completely fiction based on true facts, and you definitely would never take them as Gospel, but to be honest, even knowing that they’re not real still builds my faith. It’s always good to be reminded that the things we read in the Bible actually happened to real people just like you and me, and the people who witnessed the events would probably respond like we would.
One of my favorites was written by Og Mandino in the fourth and fifth chapters of his book “The Greatest Salesman in the World.”
In those chapters you read about Hafid, a young camel boy in the service of a his master, one of the riches most successful salesman in the world. Hafid has fallen in love with the daughter of a wealthy man, and knowing that this man would never approve of his daughter marrying a poor camel boy, he asks his master to promote him from Camel Boy to Salesman.
As a test of his commitment and determination, Hafid’s master gives him one of his finest seamless robes to sell in the near shepherd town of Bethlehem.
Below is a link to the audio of the forth and fifth chapters of the book, after Hafid has spent four unsuccessful days in Bethlehem.
Every time I read this portion of the book, this perspective of the Christmas story, it always reminds me of the vast impact that night had on so many different people.
