The Forgotten Shepherd is a fictional work, but is centered on the true story of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Luke chapter 2 is the well-known Bible story of the angels appearing and announcing the birth of the Savior to a group of shepherds as they watched over their flocks by night. This image is so quintessential to the Christmas message that even non-Christians know the story. Linus (of Peanuts fame) reads the passage in a beloved TV Christmas special. Christmas cards show the images of shepherds on a lonely hillside looking at a bright star or standing around a manger in a stable looking at the Christ-child. Christmas songs, both religious and secular, mention the shepherds. Christmas pageants with children dressed as shepherds are an annual event...but what happened to those first shepherds? Luke tells us that after the shepherds left the stable, they spread the word about what they had seen and what had been told to them about this child. And everyone was amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But then what? The shepherds played such a prominent role in the first Christmas story, but after that, the Bible doesn't mention them again. For so many people, the story ends there. For them, there is no connection between the beautiful, miraculous birth of the Savior and the Easter event that speaks of the death and resurrection of that Savior. The Forgotten Shepherd is about what could have happened to one of those shepherds and how he meets Jesus, again, over thirty years later.
