Luke 2:8-12
"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord.'"
Shepherds. Let me tell you about shepherds in first-century Judea. They were not the romantic figures we see on Christmas cards. They were the working class. The rough hands. The people who smelled like sheep and slept in the dirt. They were not allowed to testify in court because their testimony was considered unreliable. They were ritually unclean because they could not keep all the ceremonial laws while working in the fields. They were the outsiders. The ones religious people looked down on.
And God sent His angel to them. Not to the chief priests in Jerusalem. Not to the scholars in the synagogues. To the men in the field who nobody thought were worth listening to. The glory of the Lord lit up the night sky and the first people to hear the gospel were the ones the religious system had written off.
This is the pattern of God. He bypasses the powerful and goes straight to the margins. He does not wait for the qualified. He calls the available. The shepherds were not chosen because they were holy. They were chosen because they were there. They were doing their jobs in the dark, watching over sheep that were not theirs, and God decided that they would be the first to know that the world had changed. The good news is for all the people. And it starts with the ones everyone else forgot.
I think about the shepherds because I know what it feels like to be on the outside. To feel like you are not religious enough. Not put-together enough. Not the right kind of Christian. To sit in a room full of believers and feel like you are the only one who does not have it figured out. The shepherds would have felt that way too. And God looked right past the polished people in the city and found them in the field.
And what did the shepherds do when they heard the news. They did not sit and debate. They did not form a committee. They said, "Let us go." They ran to Bethlehem. They found Mary and Joseph and the baby in the manger. And then they told everyone. The people who were not allowed to testify in court became the first evangelists. The ones nobody trusted became the first witnesses. God has a habit of doing that.
"Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord."
If you feel like an outsider today, hear this. The gospel was announced to outsiders first. You are not too far from God to be reached. You are not too rough, too broken, too unqualified. The shepherds were in a field in the dark and God found them. He will find you too. And when He does, you will not be able to keep it to yourself. You will run. You will tell. You will become a witness to the very thing that saved you.
With the twelfth candle burning and the shepherds' urgency in my bones, I am running toward the manger. Come and see. Claire