The shepherds return to their flocks and the tasks of shepherding. Mary and Joseph return to Nazareth and the tasks of homemaking, carpentry, and parenting. The birth has taken place with no public attention and no display of cosmic pyrotechnics. "How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given." That is the way it is with God's actions, they are known by their effects and not by their beginnings. Like the other gospel writers Luke is an interpreter of events now seen through the prism of the resurrection and subsequent experience. Faith judgments are always retrospective.