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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Imagine this scene from the first Christmas.
Shepherds from the fields have come into town, and the arrive at the stable where the baby Jesus is laid. And they tell a fantastic story. Earlier that night they were visited by an angel who told them that the Messiah was born that very night. And that they would find him, laid in a manger and wrapped in cloth. And… there he was!
Luke tells us that all who heard the shepherds’ story were amazed. And that Mary pondered these things in her heart.
Why and what does Mary ponder?
That this is her moment of redemption.
Mary had also been visited by an angel, and she was told that she would bring forth the Christ. But that happened in private. Surely others were skeptical. Mary could have been shunned by Joseph, her husband. She could have been stoned to death. The arrival of the shepherds on the first Christmas night justify Mary. They confirm that what she claimed is true. How else would they have known about this child and sought him out in a barn?
The shepherds and the angels appear only in Luke’s gospel. It is the most visual, the most beautiful telling of the Christmas story. We know God is faithful. Look how everything that Mary had said about her son was justified when a group of men she’d never met showed up a short time after her son’s birth.
God is like that. He redeems and justifies us, sometimes in unexpected ways.
Merry Christmas.
Chris Conley
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