Everyone Was Amazed

It is nearly dawn in Bethlehem, and doors are opening. Sleepy people step outside to find a group of shepherds, eyes shining, all talking at once. You won't believe what we've just seen.

A few hours ago, these shepherds were sitting by a fire on the hillside, guarding their sheep. Then an angel came. Then a whole army of angels. Then a mad dash down into town, searching for a baby lying in a manger. And they found him, exactly as they had been told: Mary, Joseph, and the newborn child. They have stood in that small room. They have looked at that small face. And now they step back out into the street. The town is crowded with people who have come home for the emperor's registration. Every house is full. Every house is about to hear the news.

Luke says: “And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.” They had seen, so they told. They did not need a plan. They did not need training. They simply passed on what they had heard and seen. Picture them stopping people at wells and doorways. There was an angel. There were hundreds of them, thousands. They said a Saviour has been born, Christ the Lord. And we found him, right here in town, lying in a manger.

And how did people react? Luke says all who heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. They were amazed. Maybe some laughed in disbelief. Shepherds seeing angels? Maybe some went to see the baby for themselves. Maybe some just stood there, turning the words over. Luke does not say they all believed. He says they were all amazed. The news was too big to ignore, even coming from the most unlikely messengers.

Think about who God chose for this job. Not priests from the temple. Not scholars who knew the scriptures by heart. Not officials with seals and scrolls. Shepherds. Working men with dirty hands and simple words. Out of everyone in the world, they were the first to see the newborn Messiah, and the first to tell others about him. Years later, this baby would grow up and call himself the good shepherd. But on this first morning, it was ordinary shepherds who carried his good news through the streets.

Luke cared a great deal about eyewitnesses. At the very start of his gospel, he tells a man named Theophilus that he has carefully investigated everything from the beginning, using the accounts handed down by those who were eyewitnesses from the start. The shepherds fit that pattern exactly. They saw, and they told. In Luke's story, the good news of Jesus spreads person to person, from the very first night.

You'll find the shepherds' news in Luke chapter two, verses seventeen and eighteen. Ordinary people who had met Jesus, and could not keep it to themselves. So here is a question to carry with you. What have you seen or learned about Jesus that you could share with someone else?