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Good evening, little lambs. Tonight's story is called Before Anybody Woke Up, inspired by the Gospel of Matthew one eighteenth to twenty three. Most of the important things get finished while somebody is asleep. Long ago a good man named Joseph went to bed with a worry he could not untangle. Something had happened that he did not understand, and he had already decided one thing about it. He was not going to embarrass Mary in front of anybody. He would be quiet, and he would be kind, and while he slept, an angel came to him in a dream and said, Do not be afraid, this is God's own doing, and the baby will be called Emmanuel, which means God is with us. That is in the Gospel of Matthew chapter one, verses eighteen through twenty three. And so tonight we are on Shepherd's Hill, in the gray part of the morning before anybody is properly awake, and every scrap of the flock's winter wool is lying scattered across the yard. You need to know about the wool first because the wool is the whole trouble. Every summer the flock is sheared, and the wool is pressed into eight big sacks tied with green cord, and the sacks live in the loft above the barn, where it is dry and dusty, and smells faintly of sheep and sunshine. All winter old Woolly's family spins it and weaves it until there is a blanket for every lamb on the hill. Forty one lambs, forty one blankets. That wool is what stands between a small lamb and a long January. So when Clover came around the corner of the barn with the dew still soaking her hooves and saw wool everywhere, hanging off the fence rail, flung over the low wall, caught in the thorn hedge in ragged grey handfuls, her whole chest went cold. Up in the loft the sacks lay open with their green cords cut, and the hatch was banging. Clover stood still in the middle of the yard. The little green sprig behind her ear had been knocked sideways, and she did not think to straighten it, because she knew whose week it was to sleep down at the barn. It was pebbles, and here is the honest part, the part Clover would not have said out loud. Underneath the fright there was a small, quick, pleased feeling that she was the one who had found out and nobody else knew yet. She did not like it. She stood there with it anyway. Pebble is a big lamb, broad across the shoulders, with wool the color of wet river stones. In the summer when he had the gate, he looked away for a minute, and Tiny Wren wandered out into the meadow. He found her safe almost at once, but for days afterwards he went about certain that he was a lamb who does not watch closely enough. Clover remembered that. That was the trouble. Biscuit came round the corner then, her golden tuft standing straight off her head, and stopped dead. Oh, she said, I'll wake everybody. Don't, said Clover. But look at it. I know. Clover was not at all sure she was being good. She only knew that if it were her, she would want somebody to come to the barn and say it to her face, before the whole hill stood in the yard looking. I'll ask him myself, you can come, just don't shout it. The barn door stood open. They had the whole thing wrong from the very first step, only they did not know it yet. Pebble was asleep in the doorway, soaked to the skin, a hank of grey wool still in his teeth, and Jesus stood at the fence rail with his sleeves rolled past the elbow, hanging up the last fleece. A lantern sat on the post beside him, burned down to nothing, its flame gone small and blue in the daylight. Good morning, Clover, he said, as though she were the one lamb he had been waiting all night to see, and there was no hurry in him at all. What happened? Come and feel. She pushed her nose into the fleece on the rail. It was wet, not dewy, wet the whole way through, heavy and sour smelling, the way wool goes when it has sat in water. The rain three nights ago came in through a cracked slate, Jesus said. It ran down the wall behind the sacks. Pebble climbed up to check the cords last night, put his hoof on the bottom sack, and it squelched. Wet wool rots. In two more days there would have been nothing in those sacks but a black, ruined smelling mess, and no blankets at all. He couldn't lift the sacks down alone, Jesus said, so he carried it out in armfuls all night, now looked properly at the yard. They looked properly. It was not a mess at all. Every fleece lay flat and spread wide in the exact places where the wind goes, along the top of the wall, over the rail, up in the thorn hedge, where the air gets underneath. Somebody had thought about every single one. Nothing was wrong, Clover, Jesus said. It only looked wrong. Then he said it plainer still. And I was here. I was in this barn all night, in the dark, with a leak and the wet wool and pebble. I was not somewhere else waiting to be told. Biscuit said it straight out. Then why didn't you come and get us? Clover stood in that yard nearly crying, and you were behind this wall the whole time. You could have just said. Jesus did not answer her. He looked over at the doorway. Pebble was awake. He got his legs under him slowly. I heard her, he said. Heard what? said Biscuit. I was on the ladder with a fleece in my mouth, and I heard you two out there. I heard you say you'd wake everybody, and I heard her say don't. He looked at Clover, red rimmed and swaying where he stood. Since the summer I've been sure I'm the lamb who doesn't watch closely enough. I've been waiting a long while to find out what you'd say the first time something went wrong down here. Clover worked it out slowly, out loud. Then that hour wasn't for nothing, she said. I thought I was only waiting to find out what happened. I wasn't. I was finding out what I'd do. She thought about the small pleased feeling, and did not enjoy remembering it. I nearly did the other thing. But you didn't, said Pebble. Old Woolley came across the yard then, taking his time the way he does now, and stood looking at the fleeces steaming in the wind. When he talks he leaves gaps between the words, so they have somewhere to sit. There is a very old name for him, he said. Older than this barn. It means God is with us, not God is coming, not God is up there watching, with us, in the wet dark, carrying the sacks. The sun came up over the ridge, and by mid morning the whole yard was gently smoking with steam. Biscuit climbed up and found the cracked slate, and Jesus said they would mend it before supper. Pebbles slept till afternoon right there among the drying wool, one dry fleece over his back. So here is what to take to bed with you, little one. When something looks like it has gone wrong, that is not the same as it being wrong, and even when it truly has, you are never out in the dark on your own with it. Be kind before you know the whole story the way Joseph was, and remember the name that means God is with us. Who could you be gentle with tomorrow before you know everything? Sleep now. The wool is dry, the slate is getting mended, and the shepherd who works all night is closer to you than the blanket on your bed. Jesus, thank you for staying awake in the dark. When something looks like it has gone wrong, help me be kind before I know the whole story. And when I am afraid, remind me of your name that means God is with us. Amen. Good night, little lamb. God loves you so much. Sweet dreams.