Day fifty

Today I am looking at the shepherds of Bethlehem - the first people invited to see the newborn Jesus.

Shepherds are found throughout the Bible, and the image of shepherds is used in the Old Testament and the New Testament for leaders of God's people.

Abraham was a city-dweller until God took him out and turned him into a nomad. Nomads were very low down the food chain in the ancient world. His grandson Jacob is a shepherd and when Joseph invites his family to go and live in Egypt they have to live separately from the Egyptians because the Egyptians don't like shepherds. In New Testament times shepherds were considered untrustworthy - they were not allowed to act as witnesses in legal proceedings. Neither were women. And yet God has shepherds for the first witnesses to Jesus' birth and women as the first witnesses to his resurrection.

What does that tell us about God?

He wasn't too concerned with providing overwhelming proof. A bunch of shepherds sitting on a hillside in the spring (no shepherd would be out in December - they would freeze to death); angels appearing to those shepherds. It wouldn't sound believable, but the Bible is silent about their ongoing lives. Luke 2: 20 tells us, The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. But did they tell anyone? Did anyone else go to see Jesus as a result?

Jesus didn't burst into history with a great fanfare; his birth wasn't announced with undeniable proofs. It was just a quiet birth and the only people invited were those who wouldn't normally be invited to anything.

The God of the underdog; of the uninvited; of the unpopular ones.

How do we compare when it comes to telling those that are not liked, welcomed, trusted, that a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord? (Luke 2: 12).

Do we tell them that they have been accepted at last?