Night 14 – Shepherds Follow the Worshipping Angels

One of the most well-known metaphors in the Bible is that of sheep and shepherds – standing for us and Jesus (the Great Shepherd). As we reached Luke 2 (the most familiar section in the Scripture that retells the Christmas story), we begin to see the role of worship that some random shepherds played in the nativity story.

As we read vs. 1-7 together, we noticed that the shepherds had a similar reaction that others had when they encountered an angel: fear. We had talked about this before with the boys but again we wanted to remind ourselves about why people got afraid when they saw an angel in the Bible. Angels have all kinds of roles other than being simply messengers of God. Sometimes they came to judge for God, sometimes they came to make music, sometimes they come to protect humans, etc.

Angels are supernatural beings that can be very bright, appearing in human form and yet not look fully human at all. Because angels sometimes came as agents of destruction, you weren’t always confident when you saw an angel. And the shepherds didn’t know why the angel came at first.

But when the angel comforted them and told them he had come to let them know the Messiah had been born, a chorus of angels joined the first angel and began praising God. A choir began singing right there in the middle of a pasture. (Imagine how scared the sheep were! Bet they ran every which way you could see)!

The shepherds’ role in this story was a simple one: to worship God. They would travel to Bethlehem to see the Baby Messiah and offer him their best: worship.

And for tonight’s creation, we simply made sheep.