The Angels, the Shepherds and a visit to Jesus

Luke 2

“That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Saviour—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”

The shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger”.

In the book ‘The Rock, the Road and the Rabbi’ by Kathie Lee Gifford, the Rabbi suggests that the shepherds the angel spoke to, were no ordinary shepherds. They were Levitical shepherds, trained and tasked with the responsibility of tending and guarding the flocks used for sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem.

There were many caves surrounding Bethlehem where, when it was time for one of their flock to give birth, the shepherds would bring the sheep for this purpose. These birthing caves were kept in a state of ritual purity since these lambs were destined to be used as temple sacrifices. In fact, many male lambs born around Bethlehem would have been used for the Passover sacrifices.

It is thought that Jesus was born in a cave not a stable and so it was likely that Mary & Joseph used one of these caves for birthing Jesus since there was no room at a local inn. (This is significant as Jesus became the sacrificial lamb for us on Good Friday). The shepherds went to the cave to see Jesus and found him wrapped in swaddling cloths.  

Interestingly, the shepherds were responsible for making sure the new born lambs did not contract defects (had to be without spot or blemish for sacrifices). Baby lambs are clumsy so are wrapped in swaddling cloths to prevent them hurting themselves.

It would be interesting to know your views on this!!

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A Chocolate Christmas

A long time ago, God made the Galaxy,

It was beautiful, rich, wonderful and He filled it with people, people he made, people he loved, people like you and me, people who were special to him. And he gave these people everything. Everything except one tree, one Fruit (Pastille) which they were told not to eat.

But the people wanted to do things their own way, so they did a Breakaway from God. Trouble is, after the breakaway everything started to go wrong. Things were really really Rocky.

Suffering, pain, loneliness, bullying, violence, death, because we’d chosen our way instead of God’s way

Many years later, a young woman was FRIGHTENED OUT OF HER WITS, when an angel suddenly turned up.

The Angel wondered if he Malteser fear (‘might ease her’) Don’t be scared he said, You’re going to have a son, the Son of God, call him Jesus – A name that means he’ll save people, he’ll make them friends with God again.

And though Joseph was a bit confused, he was a good egg, you couldn’t hope to meet a Kinder man (Kinder Egg), so he decided to look after Mary, and God’s baby.

So the story goes that Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem. Mary was heavily pregnant, and Joseph wondered if she’d Flake out on the journey. They finally found a room full of animals, a kind of stable. We don’t know what sort of animals were there, whether there was a Kit Kat!, but by morning there was Jesus, Nestleing in his mothers arms.

All sorts of strange visitors started to turn up.

First some shepherds: they’d been up on the hillside, looking up at the Milky Way, when some angels appeared in the sky and said go and see God’s promised Saviour. Tell everyone, don’t Wispa, shout it out, God is here. So straight as an Aero they headed for Bethlehem to find Jesus. And they were there in a Jaffa.

Further away, some wise men were looking up at the planets in the sky: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, when they saw something amazing. By the way: in the ancient world, Jupiter was the ‘king star’, and at the time of the birth of Jesus, Jupiter appeared in the night sky very close to Saturn, which represented Israel. If you were reading the sky you’d see ‘new king in Israel’.

So the kings packed up their Bounty – their presents for the new king

And came to see Jesus. They didn’t find him at king Herod’s palace, but those wise men were Smarties, they didn’t give up. And when they found Jesus they brought out their gifts, Gold for a king, incense for worship, myrrh for death.

And here’s the Crunch (ie). The baby Jesus is the Son of God, sent by God into the world. He is Divine, wrapped in human skin.

God’s gift to you: but you can only taste how good the gift is if you unwrap it.

I hope you do choose Jesus, but in the end, it’s your selection.

Definitely a reason for a celebration!

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