The account, as recorded in Luke chapter two, reveals that the angels were enveloped in the glory (brightness) of the Lord as they spoke to the shepherds in chorus. It was such an unusual and spectacular sight that the shepherds were “sore afraid.” And lest you think of shepherds as the more quiet or soft sort, I should remind you that these men braved the elements, the wild animals and the thieves and robbers of their day, on a regular basis.

  But think of it, of all the characters who were involved in the biblical account of Christ’s birth, none were more visibly moved than these burly shepherds. And why not? They were stirred by a supernatural appearance and challenged by a miraculous message; the long awaited Savior of the world had been born that night and was wrapped in swaddling clothes and even now lay in a lowly manger in that very town.

  We can almost feel their excitement as Luke describes how “they came with haste,” to meet their Creator God in a cattle stall. And as they left that holy ground on which the King of Kings humbly lay, they could not contain themselves, but “made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.” And in every place they shared their story, “all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.”

  My friend, those shepherds were moved to action by the events of that night, and yet what they saw does not compare to what we are able to “see,” through the window of Scripture, concerning this Babe in a manger. We can travel with Him over the hills of Judea, down by the Jordan, through Samaria and around the Sea of Galilee. We can watch as He healed the lame, raised the dead and caused the blind to see. We can follow Him to the hill called Mount Calvary where He bled and died to pay the price for our forgiveness. We can visit the empty tomb, and behold His disciples gathered on the Mount of Olives as He ascended back to heaven.

O my Christian friend, if the first chapter, as it were, could stir the shepherds to go and tell what they had seen, how much more should we be moved to share the whole of the story of how “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.”