A Lofty Message for a Lowly Audience

Read Luke 2:8-20

When God bursts through time and space to become a human being, a grand birth announcement is in order. One would expect a far-reaching broadcast of this earth-shaping news to be blasted across the airwaves; to rulers far and wide— among the most influential with an appeal to spread this blessed news! Yet once again, in most peculiar fashion, God operates contrary to human instinct and delivers the first report of this sacred birth to an unlikely and lowly audience—a band of shepherds.

Shepherds were not exactly at the top of the socioeconomic hierarchy, and religiously speaking were considered ceremonially unclean. These men were often regarded as outcasts, spending theirs days— and nights— in the fields with livestock, only to visit town with carousing on their minds and a stench on their bodies. To God, however, these were the perfect individuals to declare the message of his glory come down to earth.

“Today a Savior, who is Messiah the Lord, was born...

For You...

Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people He favors!”

The gospel isn’t reserved for an elite few, but rather it transcends social, economic, and cultural barriers. It captures the hearts and affections of the lowly, the outcast, the rejects. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, exemplified in a ragtag bunch of nobody shepherds, whom in a moment had their lives forever transformed. What likely began as a typical evening under the night sky with the Creator of the universe far from their minds, concluded with the shepherds “glorifying and praising God for all they had seen and heard.”

May our encounter with the person and work of Jesus Christ prompt the same response.

Starter Prayer:
Father,
I praise you for having the power to save anyone. Thank you for revealing yourself to the shepherds 2,000 years ago, and thank you for loving an unlikely person like me today. I don’t deserve your grace, but I gladly and gratefully welcome it. Help me to respond the way the shepherds so appropriately responded by “glorifying and praising” you.
Amen.