They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them. (Luke 2:16-20)It is hard to imagine the first time, but here it was. The shepherds were sitting around minding their own business and suddenly, a choir of angels began to sing. It was probably frightening.
When the angels told them to go to Bethlehem and see the baby, they went. They probably had no idea which baby or where, but they were not about to disobey angels. You can almost imagine them thinking about going house to house when they just kind of gravitated to the stable. There, among all the people and all the babies who were probably born that night, was one who was the King of Israel. And they found him.
It startled Mary and Joseph when a bunch of smelly shepherds came into the stable. Joseph’s first impulse may even to have been to jump in front of Mary and the baby to defend them.
He soon realized that they were from God.
But why shepherds? Why someone so lowly, so menial, so far down the social level? Why not someone better and greater?
He soon found out that Jesus had come to the world, not the “powerful and important.” He came to shepherds as well as kings. He came to everybody.
Soon though, the shepherds left. And Joseph was left with Mary and the baby, his new family, his new responsibility. It was not his child, and he – along with the entire village of Nazareth – knew it. But he loved Mary, and because of that, he loved Jesus.
And life went on.
Glory came down and then everything went back to normal. But meanwhile, the grace and love of God in the form of a baby lay sleeping, dreaming whatever dreams babies dream, waiting for the day he would sacrifice himself for humanity.
Mary adjusted his blanket and went to sleep herself. And Joseph waited. He wondered if something else was going to happen tonight.
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