Luke 2:8-20 tells the story of the shepherds on the night the Christ Child was born. It’s starts simply, “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby.”
Shepherds were not a highly respected lot (although King David had elevated their stature some). Necessary, of course, someone had to watch all those sheep that would one day end up as sacrifices. Life wasn’t easy for them, outside in the elements, sleeping beside their flocks, ever vigilant for predators. But it was to this lot of rough, tough men that God first gave the news of the birth of His Son … “a Savior has been born to you.”
God also, through the angelic announcement gave them directions to find this Savior … in a manger, in a stable, wrapped in binding cloths. Look for Him among the animals.
The shepherds followed the angel’s instructions and left their animals to go find this Savior born in a place where other animals were housed. Ever wonder if the announcement had been given to kings or priests or men of honor if they would have gone? Would they have lowered themselves to tramping around in the middle of the night searching through stables to find a baby amid the animals?
That didn’t bother the shepherds one bit. They went. And what did they find? A worried carpenter. An exhausted new mother. And a baby, wrapped in cloths, in a manger, in a stable, among the animals. And somehow, they knew, they knew, that what the angels had proclaimed was true … this was “Christ the LORD.”
“The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”
