Night reading · Luke 2:8
Keeping watch over the flock by night
The fields outside Bethlehem · Luke 2
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
Luke 2:8 · King James Version
Cold fields, a long way from anything important.
Shepherds — the lowest trade there was, so disreputable that their testimony was not accepted in a court. Men who slept outdoors with animals and smelled of it. They are working the night shift, as they do every night, in a field outside a town nobody had reason to visit.
Keeping watch over their flock by night.
It is the most ordinary sentence in the chapter, and it is the one that matters, because that is where the sky broke open.
Not in the temple. Not in the palace. Not over the scholars who could have quoted you the prophecy about this town chapter and verse. Over a cold field, at the far edge of the working world, above men who were awake because somebody had to be.
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
Of course they were afraid. Anyone would be.
And the first thing said to them is the first thing said in almost every one of these encounters: Fear not.
For, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
To all people. Starting with these ones. Starting with the night shift.
Then the sign, and it is a strange sign — you will find a baby wrapped in cloth, lying in a feeding trough. That is how you will know. Not a throne. A trough, in a town of a few hundred people, in an occupied country, at night.
And then the sky is full.
Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God. A whole army of them, over a sheep field, singing to an audience of shepherds who would not have been allowed to testify about it afterwards.
And then it stops, and it is dark again, and they are standing in a field with the cold coming back and the sheep moving about, exactly as before.
Everything had changed and the field looked the same.
Which is more or less where you are tonight.
You are somewhere ordinary. Somebody has to be awake, or somebody has to sleep, and it is your turn. Nothing about the room you are in looks like the centre of anything.
That is precisely the kind of place He comes to. He has never once needed the room to be impressive.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Peace. On earth. Toward you.
Close your eyes.
And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen.