The angels announced the joyous news of the coming of the Savior to poor shepherds tending their flocks at night.
The news was not given to the rulers and religious establishment.
The announcement turned great fear into great joy for the shepherds.
How utterly appropriate that the announcement of God's Lamb to be slain for poor sinners was given to shepherds, whose job it had been for the ages to raise little lambs to be sacrificed!
So the shepherds went to see the things that had been revealed to them by the angels, and sure enough they found Jesus, in lowly estate in a manger. What an incongruous sign for so important a person!
Surely the shepherds must as wondered, as they left Jesus there, but how can a little baby save His people?
Others, such as Simeon and Anna, rejoiced to see the Christ.
Indeed, the Lord Jesus Himself observed the blessing upon those who see Him and understand at least some of what He was anointed to do. "Blessed are your eyes, for they see these things, which prophets and kings long ago desired to see!"
Old Testament saints had always longed to see their Redeemer. Poor Job, in his desperate circumstances, trusted that one day he would see Messiah in the flesh, and the thought of it took his breath away.
But most people saw nothing beautiful or desirable in Jesus, just as Isaiah had lamented. There was no beauty in Him that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected of men, and we hid as it were our faces from Him.
When Jesus hung upon the cross in agony and woe, most people who saw Him mocked Him and laughed at His miserable state.
One day everyone will see Him, either in joy or in fear and horror.
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John Pittman Hey was born in 1961 in Jackson, Mississippi, to Godly parents who from the beginning raised him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. With child-like faith he came to Christ on his fourth birthday at his mother's knee. He received his education at church...
