Let us go now to Bethlehem (Luke 2:1-14)

If you were to put together a guest list for the birth of the Messiah 2000 years ago, many would find it completely unbelievable and shocking that the shepherds would be included. Shepherding was a disreputable trade; shepherds were outcasts, considered ‘unclean’ because of their profession. People instead would have expected political leaders like Caesar Augustus, religious leaders such as the Chief Priests and the Pharisees and so on. Yet for Luke, the shepherds are the first to hear the Gospel of Jesus and they are the first ‘preachers’ of the Good News. At first they were terrified, but the angels reassured them: ‘do not be afraid’. The response of the shepherds was immediate: ‘let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing which has taken place’.

Jesus did not find hospitality in his own city, yet he will be the one who will show the abundance of God’s hospitality. The poor, the marginalised, the outcast will be the first to experience it and the shepherds come in their name. We are told that people were amazed by the shepherds and their words. Their journey didn’t end in Bethlehem, for them it was perhaps only the beginning as they returned ‘glorifying and praising God’. We are invited to Bethlehem today, to open up our hearts to the One who has come to bring hope and joy. And we return, like the shepherds ‘glorifying and praising God for all they have seen and heard’. Shalom.