The Promised One: Advent Day 23

Read & Journal

Read Luke 2:8-20. Meditate on what you’ve read with these journal prompts:

• Think about what you’ve just read. How would you describe it in your own words?

• What do these verses teach you about God? About his character?

• Do these verses reveal anything about Jesus? Explain.

• Where do you see God’s promises or prophecies about the Messiah being fulfilled in today’s passage?

• Joy is one of the traditional themes for this week of Advent. What is the ultimate reason for joy in these verses?

• Would you say that Jesus is the ultimate source of your joy? Why or why not?

• The shepherds responded to the good news of Messiah’s birth with testimony, worship and praise. How will you choose to offer these gifts to Jesus today?

Ponder

God had been faithful. The long-promised Messiah was here, and the first people to hear the good news weren’t the most powerful or the most important by society’s standards. Instead, the honor went to a bunch of lowly shepherds out in the fields among their sheep. Shepherds were generally considered unclean, due to the nature of their work, and widely regarded as dishonest. If we were writing the story, they probably wouldn’t be the characters we picked to receive the good news of great joy first.

But they were the people God selected. The story of redemption God had been unfolding across the centuries through his people, his prophets, through the law and through his promises wasn’t just about freeing the people from an earthly ruler. It was about setting them free from oppression—the chains of sin that bound them, the weight of iniquity that trapped them. They could never free themselves; they needed a Savior.

God had been faithful—but we are an unfaithful people, a people of unclean lips. We can make God’s announcement of Jesus’ birth to the shepherds a beautiful story about God turning the world upside down and sharing salvation with the people we’d least expect. Which it is, in some ways. But we do ourselves a huge disservice if we don’t recognize that in this story, we are the shepherds.

We are the outcasts.

We are the sinners.

We are the unclean liars who can’t keep from lying.

We are the rejects, the hopeless ones, the forgotten, the overlooked and the ignored.

And we are the ones he comes to first with the good news of salvation.

Lift your head and worship, dear one. Salvation has come. Celebrate because today I bring you good news of great joy to all people: The Savior—yes, the long-promised Messiah, YOUR Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem!”

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