Let's Go and See

Running feet on a stony path. Breath steaming in the cold night air. A group of shepherds racing down the hill toward the lights of a little town.

It has been a night like no other on the hills outside Bethlehem. An angel appeared to the shepherds in a blaze of glory and told them a Saviour had been born, Christ the Lord. Then the sky filled with the armies of heaven, praising God. And now, just as suddenly, the angels have gone back into heaven. The sky is dark. The fire is still burning. The sheep are still there. And the shepherds look at each other. What do we do now?

They don't argue for long. Luke tells us exactly what they said to one another. “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.” Notice how they put it. Not the angel told us, but the Lord has made it known to us. They understood who had really spoken. And they did not say, let's go and check whether it's true. They said, let's go and see this thing which has happened. They already believed it. They just wanted to see it with their own eyes.

Luke says they came with haste. They hurried. Maybe one of them stayed behind with the flock. Maybe they left the sheep to God's care for an hour. Luke doesn't tell us. But imagine them scrambling down the dark slopes, stumbling over stones, laughing and gasping for breath. Then into the narrow streets of Bethlehem, crowded with visitors for the registration. Which house? How would they know? They had their sign: a baby wrapped in cloths, lying in a manger. So perhaps they went from door to door, looking for the one house with a newborn in a feeding trough.

And they found them. Luke lists them one by one, slowly, as if he wants us to take in each face. They found Mary. And Joseph. And the baby, lying in a manger. Everything was exactly as the angel had said. Picture the moment. Rough, tired men, smelling of smoke and sheep, crowding into a small room. A young mother resting. A father standing protectively nearby. And a tiny baby, the Saviour of the world, asleep where the animals ate. The shepherds had seen heaven's glory on the hillside. Now they saw God's glory in a manger.

Bethlehem was not a large city. Seven hundred years earlier, the prophet Micah had spoken of it as little among the clans of Judah, almost too small to count. And yet, Micah said, out of Bethlehem would come a ruler for Israel. In a small town like that, shepherds from the nearby hills could walk in during the night and find the right house without a map.

You'll find the shepherds' hurry in Luke chapter two, verses fifteen and sixteen. They heard, they believed, they went, and they found him. So here is a question to carry with you. When God shows you something about Jesus, how can you go and see for yourself, without waiting?