And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 

Just a random one-liner for the bible passage today. Not too much in it.

However, it presents a shift in the account that has been focused on Mary and Joseph up until this point in time.

Here we get a shift of setting to ‘the fields nearby’ along with the introduction of some shepherds. Shepherds who seem fairly innocuous and ordinary, but they’re about to pack a punch to the storyline.

They seem ordinary: they’re just doing their job. But they’re about to provide the storyline with the exemplar or model response.

For they are about to be told about the birth of Jesus. And that news requires a response.

As we know, not everyone responds to Jesus in the positive.

But Christmas is the time to work out your response to Christ.

As a child at church, I would have dressed up for nativity plays every year. I don’t recall it, but photos indicate that I dressed up as an angel at least once, probably multiple times. I think I was generally OK with that.

But I was never chosen to be Mary and I think I was a little miffed about that.

Due to the whole gender stereotyping thing of the 1980 and 90s, I never dressed up as shepherds but my brothers certainly did. (Also evidenced in the photos I’ve seen).

I think they dressed up as shepherds every year. They probably got a bit sick of it.

However, I hope we don’t ever get sick of being like the shepherds. Because, sure, they seem fairly innocuous and ordinary.

But they’re about to pack a punch to the storyline over the next few days.

Yours in anticipation,

Alison