What If We Had Been the Shepherds?

Not the polished, postcard shepherds -- but the real ones. Sleepless. Dusty. Smelling like sheep. Curled up on the ground because that’s just how life worked.

Shepherding wasn’t glamorous, but it was essential. Sheep mattered. Sacrifices mattered. And shepherds stayed busy because sheep were born -- well -- to die.

Then one night -- everything changed.

Was the field far away from Bethlehem or just beyond the edge of town? Scripture doesn’t say. But we know this -- it was close enough for heaven to break in and close enough for trembling shepherds to run.

Imagine waking to light where darkness had lived for centuries. A stranger -- glowing -- hovering in the sky. The first words? “Do not be afraid.” (Which is comforting --but also suggests fear had already arrived.)

The angel announces news so big it bends the night:
A baby has been born.
Not just any baby.
The Messiah.

And here’s the question that must have landed hard in the shepherds' hearts: Why us? Why not kings? Priests? Scholars? Why announce history’s greatest moment to men who slept beside sheep?

Yet off they ran -- breathless, curious, afraid, delighted -- all at once.

They didn’t find silk or royalty. They found a young mother. A faithful carpenter. A baby wrapped in ordinary cloth and laid in a feeding trough. No spotlight. No palace. Just holy quiet.

And suddenly the picture made sense.

Shepherds -- keepers of sacrificial lambs -- aside from His parents -- were the first to behold the Lamb of God. The final sacrifice. Born not for a few, but for all.

The powerful came humbly so no one would be left out.
The Significant One came to people who thought themselves insignificant.

And that’s the miracle -- that night didn’t just tell shepherds who Jesus was. It told them who they were.

Seen. Chosen. Included.

And if heaven would come for shepherds in the field, it will surely come for us -- right where we are.

Oh holy night, indeed!

#shepherds #sacrificiallamb #lambofgod