Shepherds

From: Family Advent - Celebrating the Journey Toward Christmas

Scripture reading – Luke 2:8-20

Devotion

A shepherd’s life was not glamorous.  Nor did people think much of them.  The constant demands of the sheep kept them separate from city life.  The work of the job often brought them in contact with dead animals – rendering them ceremonially unclean.  Finally, they didn’t have many of the luxuries of the city dwellers and were regarded as being smelly and rough.  Yet on the night that God came to earth there was only one personal invitation given to the event – to a group of shepherds.  In Bethlehem, the shepherds would likely be raising many of the lambs that would be used for the Passover sacrifice each year.  They carefully maintained the blood-lines of the sheep in their care and prepared them for the sacrifice that looked back upon God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt.  It was shepherds like these that were chosen by God to see the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  While priests, scribes, kings, and faithful Pharisees and Sadducees slept in their homes, a few poor shepherds were invited to have a front row seat to see the Son of God in human flesh.  Jesus Christ came, not to the rich and the powerful, but the poor and the humble.  He truly is Emmanuel – God with us – come for the salvation of all who would come to Him in humble faith.