The First Evangelists

Now when they had seen Him

they made widely known

the saying which was told them

concerning this Child.

Luke 2:17, NKJV

How long do you reckon those shepherds stayed huddled in the little hillside tabernacle with Joseph and Mary, staring down at the Messiah in a manger?  As a pastor, and more often as a friend, I have occasioned to be in a delivery room shortly after some births.  Let me tell you, first of all, it's no pretty sight.  Immediately after, I mean.  And even when I've waited a few minutes or hours to go see the proud papa and mama and their little bundle of joy, that's not the time to pull up a chair and stay for an afternoon visit.

First of all, that is a very personal, very intimate time for a family.  Secondly, everybody is completely exhausted in ways the people who've never been through it cannot understand, and those who've been through it have likely forgotten.  Thirdly, I'm speaking from the perspective of a friend.  What if it was strangers coming into the hospital room to see your newborn.  Don't you think your reaction would be, "Thank you for coming.  Now GET OUT!"

Then again, we're talking about the birth of the most anticipated figure in 4000 years of those shepherds' history.  A birth shrouded in miracle and mystery, announced by angelic messengers and heavenly choirs.  If I had been one of those shepherds, I might have wanted to linger at the cribside just a while longer.  Would I have reached out and stroked his chubby cheek with my knuckle?  Would I have smoothed the dark curls of hair with my roughened palm?  Would I have dared bend to place a soft kiss on his smooth forehead?  Come on!  I can't resist doing it to normal babies.  I most certainly would have been reaching out for any kind of contact with the Christ, brief though it might have been.

And I suspect that Mary and Joseph probably understood.  Maybe they were in awe too.  As if, after having carried him for nine months and now delivered him into the world, they weren't quite sure what to do with him now.  How do you care for the son of God?  And how do you react when people who have been sent by God to worship invade your personal space to do exactly that?

However long they stayed, there did come a point in time where the shepherds knew they had been there long enough.  With muttered whispers of gratitude and farewell, they backed out of the shelter.

And then they went berserk!  At least that's the way my imagination sees it.  The time for reverence had been in finding the Child.  But to know everything they had been told was true, that the savior of the world had been born and they were his first visitors.  Their hearts were pounding inside their chests, their breathing rapid, their eyes bulging with excitement.  I can close my eyes and see them as they huddled together outside, bouncing on the balls of their feet, whispering excitedly about what they were going to do.  I'll bet the first thing each of them wanted to do was go home and tell their wives!  So into the night they ran, each one of them in a different direction, maybe even waking up their neighbors along the way to tell them the good news.

Those shepherds were the original evangelists!  And they give us a good pattern to follow in doing the same kind of work.

They heard the message about the Messiah.

They saw the Messiah for themselves.

They told everyone they saw about the Messiah.

We should be doing the same.