Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Luke 2:8-9 And in the same region there were shepherds ... and an angel of the Lord appeared to them.
BUT MARY TREASURED UP ALL THESE THINGS, PONDERING THEM IN HER HEART (2)
Would Mary ever forget those shepherds? Not likely! They had brought some wondrous news. Up to that point, things might have seemed rather normal. A young woman is in her ninth month, and makes a journey of some days to get to a crowded city far from her normal surroundings. Of course that would be the time that the baby would come! It has happened many times before.
But out in the field something was happening that had never happened before: some shepherds were being greeted by an angel, scared half to death, then filled with joy at the angel's message. That was the glorious message that they had come to share with Mary, a message worth pondering.
Some have marveled that God sent His messengers to lowly shepherds rather than to the rulers and powerful people just a couple miles away in Jerusalem. But Mary may not have found this surprising. Like the shepherds, she too was considered to be "of low degree" and she had been visited by an angel too. That time it was the angel's greeting that had startled her, and now the shepherds also came with an amazing message about her new-born son -- what was it the angel called Him? -- "Christ the Lord."
Does it matter whether His first bed is a fancy crib, the drawer of a motel dresser, or a feed-trough? Not to the angels! And not to God! He who was not ashamed to become one of us was also not ashamed to be born in the lowliest of circumstances. Nor need we be ashamed of lowly circumstances if He is with us!
