Thought for Friday 23 December

 Luke 2:11-14

New Living Translation

¹¹ The Saviour—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! ¹² And you will

recognise him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”  ¹³ Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying, ¹⁴ “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”

Like most folks, I have heard the story of the Lord’s birth so many times and it loses nothing in the re-telling.  This year, I found myself reading the biblical accounts of the Old Testament prophecies and the New Testament verses that tell of the various things that happened before, during and after his birth over and over again.  This has led to me discovering many aspects of the story that I’ve previously missed or just skipped over, despite having heard it so many times over the years.

Today’s passage describes the conversation between an angel and some shepherds.  This, in itself, is an amazing occurrence.  In the preceding verses we are told that suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them and that the shepherds were frightened (not surprisingly!) and the angel told them not to be afraid.

I found myself wondering if this scene would’ve looked anything like some of the images we see on Christmas cards or would it be somehow, different?  Did the angel appear out of thin air, or did he approach them on foot?  What did the angel look like, did he look like a man, what kind of clothes was he wearing, did the radiance of the Lord make him look that his face or whole body was glowing, or on fire?

We are told for the second time that the baby will be snugly wrapped in strips of cloth, why not a blanket, and for the third time that he will be in a manger, so if parts of the story are mentioned more than once, should we pay more attention to these parts?

The angel was then joined by a vast host of others, the armies of heaven, were these armies on the ground or in the sky, were they made up of angels like the one who spoke to the shepherds or were there members of this army that appeared different, roughly how many were in these armies and how do we know they were armies, did they carry weapons, were they wearing armour?

When they were praising God, was it in a chant or was it sung, and if it was sung, was there musical accompaniment?  The words they used when praising God were; ‘Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased’.  Does this mean there could be a lowest heaven and who are those ‘with whom God is pleased’?

I guess the information provided about our Saviour’s birth is enough for us and the answers to all the previous questions raised will remain a mystery.  Maybe we are just to do what we are told in verse 19 about the birth of Jesus and that is to quietly treasure these things in our heart and think about them often, just as his mother did.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, as another Christmas draws near, we thank you for the circumstances before, during and after your birth as described in our bibles.  Open our hearts and minds when we hear or read these passages so that we don’t miss any of your messages or teachings that are to be found there.  Help us to take some time out from the secular demands that abound just to remember when the Saviour of the world, Immanuel (God with us) was born. Amen