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It’s my favorite time of year—though I never heard the word Advent until my mother brought home an Advent calendar one year. Presbyterians didn’t observe Advent in western Pennsylvania in those days. I learned about it from the brightly decorated calendar with its tiny paper doors, one for each December day until Christmas. I recall that my little brother succumbed to curiosity and opened the final door soon after the nightly dinnertime ritual began, revealing a manger and the Christ Child.

The angel said, "Fear not."“Fear not” is one of the standard opening lines that angels use to calm humans when they meet them, but it rarely does any good, and it certainly didn’t do any good on this night. At the first sound coming from the angel’s mouth, all eight shepherds fell flat on their faces. They were shaking and clinging to the earth as if crawling back into the dust from which they came might save them this night.