Shepherds

You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. – Luke 2:12

The angel bypassed Jerusalem, the religious center of Israel. He didn’t go to Herodium, Herod’s villa near Bethlehem. He appeared instead to a band of shepherds tending their flocks (Luke 2:8-9).

Back then, no one thought God would be interested in shepherds, or that shepherds would be interested in God. Shepherds were notoriously irreligious, ranked by the rabbis with prostitutes and other "habitual sinners". They were outcasts, barred from the synagogue and polite society. They assumed that God would never accept them, and they feared Him.

But God spoke to them. I think He knew that these shepherds, like so many people who appear indifferent to spiritual things, were quietly longing for God.

All of us have a longing for something more. And no matter how hard we try to appear self-sufficient, sooner or later we run out of something essential – love, money, time, or life. Isolation, loneliness, and fear of death lead us to acknowledge our need for a Savior. But where can we find Him?

The angel’s words to the shepherds were simple and direct: "There is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11). You can find Him too. – David Roper

Come to Bethlehem and see

Him whose birth the angels sing;

Come, adore on bended knee

Christ the Lord, the newborn King. – Anon.

READ: LUKE 2:8-20

God’s gift to a dying world is the life-giving Savior.