Dec 23rd

Luke 2:8-11

New International Version (NIV)

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah,the Lord.

Ever wondered why the first people to hear the news of the birth of the Messiah were shepherds?   Or technically more accurately homeless people.   They were living in the fields.  Very poor people living a nomadic existence with their scrawny scraggly sheep scratching a living from the sparse ground and moving with the sheep to find grazing wherever they could.   They probably weren't  at all educated, they possibly rarely visited the synagogue.  They were the very bottom of the heap.   But God chose to announce the arrival of the Messiah to these few  lowly vagabond nobodies.  And not just with an angel looking like a person trotting up and telling then the news.  But with glory and singing and multitudes and a terrifying light display which must have seemed like the end of the world or something.

Why?   Why them?

Well, Im guessing here..... but maybe because God knew they would believe it.   These simple souls with little theology or education or expectation to get in the way believed what they were told.   

And maybe because God loves the simple, uneducated, homeless wanderers.  The disadvantaged poor.   maybe they were the ones for whom He came in the first place and He wanted them to be the first to hear.    Yes, of course the news was for the whole world  ' joy for all the people'.   But it seems that the joy starts with the downtrodden and ripples its way out to ' all the people' from that starting point.     An unmarried girl, some shepherds, some fishermen and tax collectors, some prostitutes and women.... and then gradually to people like Nicodemus and Paul and the Roman Centurion.    Yes, there were wise men who brought expensive gifts and who had access to the court of King Herod.  And they were there to represent the other end of the spectrum of humanity I suppose.    But it was the shepherds who got there first and who were the first to recognise that the ordinary looking baby boy in the feeding trough was the Messiah.

Let us never say that God can't speak to us. Won't use us. That we are nobody and He will pass over us in favour of someone more eloquent or educated or qualified.    That's not how God works. 

 “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.  ( Is 57 15)

Lord sometimes I count myself out.  I disqualify myself and think Im not good enough.  I think you will speak to someone better than me, use someone more mature than I am.  What do I have that you could possibly use or want or need?    Forgive me Lord when I think like this.  Thank you that you are a God who speaks to shepherds and kings, who uses children and prophets, who sets up world leaders but knows how many hairs are on my head.   God you are amazing and wonderful and I want to thank you that I dont need to be anything other than the person you have made me to be.