Once someone has a personal encounter with God, there’s no return to his or her mundane prior existence. One of the most memorable groups from the Christmas story is the first witnesses to his birth, the shepherds. In Luke 2:8-20, we see their transformation from calm night watchers to eager seekers to passionate witnesses.

But in his poem, “The Shepherds,” Mario Luzi points out the sheep were also eyewitnesses deeply impacted by that experience:

            And where would
                  those dazzled sheep graze now?
      Where were the rams pushing them?
                                      There was
      no grass at that height.
                        There was some
      Much further down
              But they didn’t want it, that grass
                                was crushed
                                and bitter,
                                      Now
                                      they craved something else.
(excerpt, translated by Luigi Bonaffini and taken from Biola University’s 2024 Advent Project)

An experience of the divine is life-redirecting. Our desires and values have changed, and the ordinary is now ruined. We see it in the admission from the Jewish authorities in Acts 4:13 that the disciples were hardly recognizable because “they had been with Jesus.” We see it in the radical transformation of fire-breathing Saul into the great apostle Paul through an encounter with the Jesus he had been persecuting. (Acts 9) And we see it all over the world as people groups meet Jesus through the translated Word of God. 

Those who have been dazzled are no longer hungry for what used to satisfy, but crave something higher. 

I sometimes wonder what happened to others who had an encounter with the divine, but the camera moves on, and there are no further updates. For instance:

• Where does Lazarus show up in the book of Acts? How does a man who once was dead (John 11,12), who can empathize with Jesus’s experience like no one else, engage in the early movement Jesus started? I can’t imagine him fading quietly into the background.
• What happened to the seventy Jesus sent out as witnesses and miracle workers? (Luke 10:1) They saw Jesus’ power coursing through their own words and in their own hands, and they had big stories to tell! (Luke 10:17) Some suggest that Andronicus and Junia (Romans 16:7) might have been two of these early ones sent out in pairs by Jesus, because Paul refers to them as “outstanding among the apostles,” and says they “were in Christ before I was.”
• How did carrying Jesus’ cross change Simon, a bystander from northern Africa, who was forced into the spotlight for a brief moment? (Mark 15:21) While he never shows up again, his transformation is evident in his family: his sons are well known to the early Roman church, and Paul thinks of Simon’s wife as his adopted mother. (Romans 16:13)
• What happened to the thousands in the streets of Acts 2, who heard the empowered apostles speaking in their languages? How did they lay the foundation throughout Rome and modern-day Turkey for Paul’s and Peter’s ministries? (Acts 13:13; 16:6; 18:2,23; 1 Peter 1:1)

And whatever happened to those shepherds? In the moment, they excitedly told everyone about meeting Jesus. Were they ever able to go back to their fields? Did any of them show up in the margins of the events described throughout the gospels? No doubt they were watching, anticipating a seismic shift. 

But the baby had to grow up before he could begin his earth-shaking ministry. The payoff would be well beyond their lifetimes. It was those who heard and responded to their message who would experience Jesus’ three years of ministry, his death and his resurrection. Sometimes the transformation comes well downstream from the original encounter. That’s where Scripture becomes an enduring witness for the generations that follow.

Maybe you have one of those transformation stories, or you are the downstream result of a transformative encounter. In what way were you dazzled, unable to return to the ordinary food that used to sustain you? Take some time to reflect on your own story, and your family’s story. If you have the time this Christmas, I’d love to hear your transformation story.