The Fourth Sunday of Advent - The Shepherd's Candle - December 18, 2011

The angelic announcement has been made: the Savior has been born!  This was "good news of great joy" ...for all people.  Yet, was the announcement given to or heard by all people?  Did God's own people, the Israelites, hear the angels?  Perhaps just the Jewish religious leaders were the ones to hear God's message from the heavenly hosts.  No, the only ones to witness the glory of the Lord that accompanied the angelic announcement were shepherds out in the fields guarding their flocks. 

In the culture of the first century, shepherding was one of the lowest jobs on the social scale.  In some cases, it was even considered a despised trade.  Wealthy men lived in the cities, but their flocks still needed to be out in the hills, so they hired men to shepherd their sheep and goats.  I don't think that it is a coincidence that the flocks outside of Bethlehem were thought to be the flocks that supplied sacrifices for the temple in Jerusalem.  God chose this rough and uneducated group of men tending sheep near Bethlehem to be the first to hear the Good News. 

The Fourth Candle reminds us that the shepherds responded to what they had witnessed. 

"When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, "Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us." So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger.  When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child.  And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds."
~Luke 2:15-18

The Son of God, the Savior, came so that all people could have life.   God has given us His Son, help us to respond to this marvelous gift.

"The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them."    Isaiah 9:2