December 11
When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child.
Luke 2:15-17 (NLT)
The shepherds we read about in Luke 2 were ordinary people doing their ordinary jobs, much like David was doing when Samuel came to anoint him as king (1 Samuel 16:13). They react with terror—in much the same way we would—to the angels filling the sky. The angels know exactly how to encourage ordinary people not to be afraid. But the shepherds could not have known how their lives would be changed by a single birth in a little stable in Bethlehem.
The shepherds had seen the angels and now they hurried to see the Messiah. They became witnesses of a transformational event in history, so they “told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child” (Luke 2:17). These shepherds were not that different from most of us. Ordinary in every way, yet their lives were touched by something that happened at the first Christmas so many years ago.
I spent Christmas in Israel in 1971, and although Bethlehem was filled with pilgrims, we managed to get into the Church of the Nativity to see the stable where Jesus was born. It was not a nice place to have a baby even then, and I imagined it was much worse 2,000 years ago. It wasn’t until the summer of 1974 when I told God I wanted to live like the shepherds that Christmas really made sense to me. It wasn’t just about getting and giving gifts. Like the shepherds’ lives were changed that night, life changed for me when the true joy of Christmas became real in my life. It hasn’t always been a life of ease, but it has been a life of joy because Christ came.
This Christmas, take an assessment of how far God has brought you since you came to know Him and, like the shepherds, rejoice as you tell others of what He has done for you.