The king greeted by shepherds

Manger scenes, Christmas pageants and paintings usually portray noble, worshipful shepherds. Yet at the time of Jesus’ birth, most people looked down on shepherds. As the shepherds cared for their flocks, they couldn’t precisely observe all the rituals other people followed to be “holy,” so devout Hebrews shunned them as “unclean.” And these were the “night shift shepherds,”* the lowest of the low. But God loved them and sent these shepherds the first news of Jesus’ birth.

• Imagine you lived in first-century Israel and didn’t know this story. Jerusalem’s Temple housed the ruling Council (the “Sanhedrin”) and many of the most revered Scripture experts. Would it shock you that God’s announcement skipped those elite leaders, who said they were waiting for the birth of the Savior? The news went to lowly shepherds a few miles away. How did that foreshadow the rulers’ response to the grown-up Jesus (cf. Matthew 26:57-67)? How did it show God’s values?
• Was Jesus born on December 25? The slim evidence makes that highly unlikely. “That shepherds were watching their flocks outside at night, rather than having them in pens, suggests that the season was warm.”** How can the story of the shepherds watching their flocks outdoors on a warmer night remind you that the good news of Jesus’ birth applies all year, and in all places, not just on a few wintry northern nights?

The Journey: A Season of Reflections

Today’s Insights blog was chapter 21, “Night-Shift Shepherds,” from The Journey: A Season of Reflections, by Adam Hamilton. Copyright © 2011 by Abingdon Press, and available on our website for 24 hours by permission of Abingdon Press. If you’d like to buy the entire book of reflections, you can click here for a direct link to the Cokesbury sale page, as well as other Journey resources.