And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
Luke 2:10-11
The day of Jesus’ birth – what was it like? If we neglect the angels singing, it was just another ordinary day. Men worked their fields and tended their flocks. Women washed clothes and chatted. Lawyers debated cases before magistrates. Soldiers marched. Lords sat in their courts and directed affairs. Kings received homage.
It surely seemed an ordinary day – except it wasn’t. Unaware, men continued their lives as if nothing happened, but the greatest event the world had ever known was taking place that day: God, the Creator, was born a creature. The One who made and counts every atom had taken on flesh and become a man.
Here was no mere earthly king. Common people should have rejoiced before him. Rulers should have brought their costliest and precious jewels. Kings should have brought the contents of their treasuries and offered their palaces as a residence for his use. Emperors should have laid their crowns at his feet. Wise men and religious sages should have gathered to his side. Jesus was truly born the King of kings.
As such, his birth was exceedingly special. Yet, God chose to announce it quietly in a peculiar way. He didn’t send angels to the court of Herod to let him know that a king had been born. He didn’t tell the Roman emperor, Cesar Augustus. The Sanhedrin and religious Jewish authorities weren’t notified. There were no headlines in the Bethlehem Evening Post announcing Jesus’ birth.
No, He chose to announce this most awesome event to a group of nobody shepherds who had nothing to give. They simply received the word of the angel and gladly went in search of the child. Once they had seen the baby, they returned “glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen” (Luke 2:20). This way of announcing a king’s birth certainly isn’t the way man thinks proper to operate in this world, but this day was God’s special day and He announced it his way.
This gives insight into the kind of God that we worship and what He desires from us. God doesn’t want our gold and jewels. He wants the adoration of our hearts. He desires from us today our heart, mind, body, and soul. He desires a simple child-like faith in him for all things, and trust that He will take care of our sins and that He has made the final provision and care for our soul.
Our social status doesn’t impress him. Much as the shepherds on a night so long ago came as they were, He desires us to repent – to leave our idols – and come to him as we are. We can’t bring anything with us to stand before him, no good works, no gold, no achievements, no excuses.
If you come, and cry out to him as you really are, you will really find him. The Bible says so!
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
Jer. 29:13
Have you cried out to him in repentance for salvation? He has promised to lead you in green pastures for your soul and through the dark valleys. He has promised to restore your soul to health and that your cup will not be just half-full but overflowing with his goodness. Even in your old and dark days, he will make your inner soul to flourish.
This is all possible by the perfect plan of God the Father. He chose to love the world in spite of sin. He sent Jesus to live a perfect, sinless life in our place as a perfect man; die a perfect sacrifice to atone for our sin, so that we could ultimately become reconciled to God; and raised him from the dead, so that we could be adopted into his immediate family as sons and daughters of God.
What does Jesus mean to you today? Is He great joy to you or is He merely a starchy ho-hum figure with a lot of rules? If the latter, come to him in honesty and repentance! He will make you new type of person (born-again) and share his own nature with you. He will begin to form you into the spiritual likeness of Jesus Christ. He will adopt you as his child and through that adoption you will inherit eternal life. Come today!
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
John 17:3
* Shepherds watching their flocks near Bethlehem, 1925, Matson Photograph Collection, Library of Congress
