Shepherds Keeping Watch

A small fire crackles. Sheep shuffle in the dark. A shepherd pulls his cloak tighter and stares into the night. It is just like a thousand other nights. Until it isn't.

Not far from the crowded little town of Bethlehem, where a baby has just been laid in a manger, there are fields and rocky hillsides. Luke tells us there were shepherds living out in the fields there. These were working people. Their days and nights belonged to the sheep: finding grass and water, carrying the weak ones, counting them in and out. They were not priests or scholars or important officials. They smelled of sheep and smoke. And on this night, like every night, they were out under the open sky.

Luke says they were keeping watch over their flock by night. That meant taking turns staying awake. Night was dangerous for sheep. Wolves, jackals, even thieves might creep close in the darkness. So while some shepherds dozed, wrapped in their cloaks by the fire, others sat up, listening. A twig snapping. A sheep bleating in alarm. Maybe they talked quietly to stay awake, about the weather, about prices at market, about the strangers crowding into Bethlehem for the emperor's registration. Maybe they just watched the stars wheel slowly overhead.

And then, Luke writes: “And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.” In an instant, the night is not dark any more. The firelight is swallowed up by a far greater light. It pours down and floods all around them, the hillside, the sheep, their startled faces. And in the middle of it stands an angel of the Lord. The glory of the Lord in the Bible is the shining, weighty presence of God himself. The same glory that filled the tabernacle in the wilderness and the temple in Solomon's day is now blazing over a field of sheep.

Luke's next words are honest. They were sore afraid. They were terrified. Picture it. Shepherds who were brave enough to face wild animals in the dark are now flat on the ground, shielding their eyes, hearts pounding. The sheep scatter or freeze. Nobody knows what is happening. Why here? Why us? We are just shepherds. But that is exactly the point. Out of everyone in the land, heaven's first announcement of the birth of the Saviour was coming to the night shift on a hillside.

Bethlehem had a famous shepherd in its past. King David grew up there, the youngest son of Jesse, and when the prophet Samuel came to anoint a king, David was out keeping the sheep. Later, David told King Saul that he had protected his father's flock from a lion and a bear. So shepherds keeping watch on the hills near Bethlehem stood in a long tradition, reaching right back to Israel's greatest king.

The shepherds on the hillside are in Luke chapter two, verses eight and nine. Ordinary people doing ordinary work, when the glory of God broke in. So here is a question to carry with you. Do you think God can meet you in the middle of an ordinary day, while you are doing your everyday jobs?