"…I’m trying real hard to be the shepherd."

…that quote is from Jules Winfield aka Samuel L. Jackson in the ultra violent, drug fueled, film from Quentin Tarantino. Not a holiday tradition in our home. But, I have been thinking about shepherds lately. Particularly the ones who were visited by angels some 2000 years ago.
Who were they? We don’t know. We have no idea if they were righteous or pious, or if they had ever done something wicked or evil,…anything to deserve a whole host of angels to serenade them with ‘The First Noelle”. We do know they were going about their job. ‘watching their flocks by night’. At least in a moment when they least expected to be visited by heaven, they were found faithful to the task at hand…as inglorious as that task may seem.

They weren’t rich or powerful. That much is certain.
That’s pretty much it. That’s all the gospel of Luke will venture to say.
And I’m so grateful for it.

At the latest hollywood movie premiere, publicists work overtime to make sure A-listers are seen rolling down the red carpet. People are so bummed that Steve Jobs won’t be attending the latest MacWorld Expo. When the elite throw a party, it better have some ‘cool’ people, or you’re just not that big a deal.
But when God chose to give the biggest press release to the most historic happening ever, he sent his angels to a group of nobody’s who smelled like goat crap.
Why? Because this gift, the gift of Himself that he was giving…was not going to be something you could earn, or work hard for, it’s something anyone, ANYONE, could freely accept.

“Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known to us.”

That’s the correct response…it’s the response I want to have this year to the gift of God. I want to have the common sense to leave whatever it is I’m doing and see what God is up to this year. I want to run down whatever hill I’m occupying and bow my head inside a small cave to kneel before a King, perhaps the world won’t accept…but is dieing for.

I want to be the shepherd.