Amy C Walters

The Shepherds and the Angels – Luke 2:8-20

The shepherds accept the angel’s invitation to go find Jesus and once they do, they go tell everyone! They don’t seem to care if they are listened to or believed or if they have all the answers. The shepherds realize that this is a message worth sharing.

Throughout the book of Luke so far, we have seen a lot of angelic appearances, especially considering that the 400 years leading up to when Luke was written, there had been silence. There had been no prophets from God and no messengers.

And so, when all of a sudden, Zachariah sees an angel, Mary sees an angel, Elizabeth speaks by the power of the Holy Spirit, and then the shepherds see  angels–this is a lot of angelic activity all of a sudden coming into the silence of those 400 years! 

We noted earlier, too, that these special messages from God through the angels, through the Holy Spirit, are coming to just small groups of people, or just individuals. Zechariah was the only one who encountered that angel. Mary was the only one who encountered that angel. When Elizabeth spoke by the power of the Holy Spirit, it was those two women, maybe Zechariah too, maybe other people in the house, who heard it. But again, small audiences for such big news. 

But now, we get to this story, and we have not just one angel, but a whole heavenly choir of angels filling up the sky, worshiping and singing and glorifying God. And they’re appearing not just to one person, but to a group of shepherds. We don’t know how many shepherds are in this group, but it’s more than one. The shepherds talk to each other and say, “Let us go and see this thing that the Lord has told us about.” So it’s more than one shepherd, it’s probably a small group of them.

So the audience for these angelic announcements is increasing. But it’s still a relatively small audience, especially when you consider the enormity of the message that they have to share, this message that the Savior has finally come. 

And this is a message that needs to be heard by everyone. In fact, the angel said, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” So how does this message spread from a ragtag group of shepherds to all the people?

Well, the shepherds, as we noted, took the angel up on his invitation and hurried off to see baby Jesus and they find Mary and Joseph and the baby in a manger. 

Let’s pause for a second too and think about this: a baby in a manger. That was given to them as a sign that they had found the right child, because you don’t just find babies in feeding troughs everywhere. This is an unusual sight. “If you’ve entered a barn and there’s a baby in there, a newborn baby, you’ve found the right one!” 

Imagine if Jesus had been born into a palace. He is the king of kings, after all. Imagine if he was born in some huge, fantastic palace that was covered in gold and all these fine things. The shepherds arriving there from the fields, maybe wouldn’t have felt welcome in a place like that. Maybe would have been reluctant to try to enter a grand palace where the king of kings is laying in a fancy cradle. 

Instead, God has Jesus born in a barn, placed in a feeding trough so that shepherds can come as they are to worship Jesus.

What a beautiful thing that God makes the Savior so accessible that ordinary people like you and me can come to him as we are, that we don’t have to fix ourselves up to approach Jesus.

Ok, back to the shepherds entering the barn. They find Jesus in the manger, just as had been told them. And what is their reaction? How do they respond to all these things that they are seeing and experiencing?

They talked about what they should do now and formed a committee to further discuss it? Or they thought, “Well, I need to get some more information, and so I’m just going to keep doing some research on this.”

No, it says, “They spread the word concerning all that had been told to them about this child.”

They saw Jesus and they spread the word about him.

They could not keep quiet about what they had seen. They had to tell everyone what the angels had told them, and the result was that “all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.” 

These shepherds could have been reluctant to spread the word. They could have kept the story to themselves and just talked about it among themselves. They could have said, “You know what? This is really unbelievable. I’m not sure many people would accept what we have to say. Maybe we should just kind of only share it with a select few.”

The shepherds, too, may not have been believed by many people or listened to by many people. Remember, they are not high status folks. But this doesn’t seem to matter to the shepherds. 

And what exactly did they talk about? “They spread the word concerning all that had been told them about this child.” So they took the message that they heard from the angels, and that was their message to their audience, everyone that they encountered. They didn’t embellish what the angel told them. They didn’t make sure they had an answer to every question they would get to their story. They just talked about what the angel told them and what they experienced in their encounter with Jesus himself.

These men were entrusted with an important invitation to meet Jesus. And they had an important responsibility from that point to share what they had heard with others. And they do not disappoint.

We’re told that when they do return to their sheep, they are “glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen.” This encounter with Jesus results in them spreading the word and in worshiping the Father. They are so overwhelmed by this experience and this encounter with the Messiah that they are full of worship. It’s the middle of the night, and they are going crazy worshiping God. Because that’s what an encounter with Jesus does; it results in worship to God.

Our key truth for today is that an encounter with Jesus leads to spreading the word and worship.

Remember, spreading the word doesn’t mean that you have to have all of the answers. Tell people what you have seen and heard and experienced with Jesus. 

And don’t be afraid about not being believed. The shepherds told everyone, and everyone was amazed at what they heard. Amazed doesn’t mean that everyone believed it. But it left an impression on those who heard. It stuck with them. And that’s what your goal is, right? You can’t make people believe, but you can leave them amazed by what they hear about what Jesus has done in your life, in your encounters with Jesus.

Your encounters with Jesus should also lead to worship as you recognize the incredible privilege of having a relationship with the Savior of the world. As you recognize the incredible privilege that God has given his message to you. You don’t have angels speaking to you, but you have the Bible, and that is the Word of God available to you at any time. What an incredible privilege to not only know Jesus, but to have his Word. These things should result in worship to God.