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The Shepherds and the Good Shepherd

The Gospel reading this week is Luke 2:1-14, but I would like to write about Luke 2:1-20, because I find the shepherds fascinating. Most of the sermons I heard in childhood only talked about how Jesus was born in a stable and how he was just wrapped in what they had to keep him warm. I want to focus on the shepherds.

During the time that Jesus was born, shepherds were considered lowly, only above those with leprosy in the social ladder. Can you imagine how it felt to have an angel visit them to announce the birth of the Christ? In Luke 2:9 they were visited by the angel, and “the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.” We see in vs. 10 that the angel immediately tells them not to be afraid. I can’t imagine not being afraid.

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’” (Luke 2:15). The angel brought the lowly shepherds the greatest news anyone has ever delivered — that the Messiah, who is Lord, was born in Bethlehem — and they quickly went to see Him. They “went with haste” (vs. 16) to find the child and they were amazed they found Him, just as the angel predicted.

What did they find? The Savior. The Messiah. The one foretold by prophets of old, and told to the lowly shepherds who were living in fields. These men were basically homeless, making sure their sheep were cared for, making sure that they were not killed by wolves or other predators. Can you see the foreshadowing of the Christ’s life? In his ministry, and even today, he was called the good shepherd, and we are considered his sheep.

Jesus made it a point in his life and ministry to reach the unreachable and love the unlovable. He lived his life in direct opposition to everything the people of the age expected him to be. Why would he not start his life the same way — being born to people society considered unremarkable, in a filthy stable, wrapped in scraps of cloth — and announce his birth to the lowest people in society?

The mission of Jesus to reach the least of these began not with the wedding at Cana or the calling of his disciples but the night of his birth with a divine pronouncement delivered by angels to the least of these.

I am thankful for the season of Advent, the anticipation of the Christ child, and then his coming to the earth. May we never forget the shepherds in the field, or the Shepherd that God the Father sent us that day.

In Christ,
Laura Higbee
Salem Office Administrator

Tags: Weekly Word