The Shepherds: Joy

What if what they said was true? The angel who appeared in a blinding light and said, “Fear not!” Who said the Savior had been born that day, and was lying in – of all places – a manger? A place where livestock were fed and shepherds weren’t turned away with wrinkled noses. The multitude of angels who sang “Glory to God” and proclaimed peace to a people who knew more of struggle than of shalom?

What if these shepherds in the field had really seen the veil between heaven and earth pulled back to reveal the hosts – the armies – of heaven? After all their people’s struggle, oppression and poverty, what if it was true that those who were for them were truly greater than those who were against them?

What if this helpless newborn in the manger really was the Savior, the Messiah, for whom they’d been waiting for so long? Their Prince of Peace?

Could they have known that this Savior would rescue them from far greater enemies than they imagined? That he wouldn’t raise an army or wield a sword to defeat Rome? That he’d sacrifice his own body and blood instead to defeat the greatest enemies of all: sin and death? That through his own sacrifice, he was the one who could reconcile enemy to enemy, and sinner to God?

No. Those truths would take time to unfold. For now, the shepherds received the news the angel gave them with joy: that their Savior had finally been born. That this good news of great joy was meant for all people.

God had chosen them, shepherds, to be the first to witness the arrival of the newborn king. Theirs was the joyful privilege of spreading the news. These shepherds, who returned to their fields glorifying and praising God because they’d seen the veil between earth and heaven peeled back and had witnessed heaven’s own joy at the Messiah’s birth.