Luke 2:8-14

The birth of the baby is first announced to shepherds in a field: a strange choice. Even stranger in an age when shepherds were considered of very low standing, not religious, not moral and not to be trusted.

Luke’s care for the poor, that was evident in chapter one, is here again. It is to ordinary work-a-day poor people that the angel comes. Whatever their lifestyle and irreligiosity they would still perhaps have longed for the Messiah to turn up and change their lives for the better, and here comes an angel with the news that he has arrived. Not just that but the heavenly messenger has come to them.

Heaven’s joy at what is happening breaks into this world with the arrival of a heavenly choir praising God and declaring his favour over those of good will. Nowhere else in scripture does this happen. God is announcing his Son’s arrival.

The sign they are given to find this baby is that he is wrapped in cloths, as would be expected, and lying in a manger, definitely not to be expected. No shiny new cradle for this baby, just what will suffice for the moment.

We can only guess at how overwhelmed the shepherds must have been – the terror, the glory, the joyful message of a Saviour born. The Lord has come – and is in a feeding trough! God has bypassed the religious and pious to reveal his Son to the poor and lowly. This is God’s plan for salvation in action. We used to sing an old chorus, some decades ago, with the line ‘whosoever wills to the Lord may come’. The whosoevers are coming.

Reflection

Have there been times when you were astonished at God’s working in your life, such as he answered a prayer or chose you for a task? The shepherds discover God is not a respecter of persons as we so often are, a willing and open heart is all that is required.