Devotion:
For an audio version of this devotion, click here.
Read Luke 2:8-18.
Throughout the Season of Advent, we have been focused on learning from the experience of various Biblical people who went to Bethlehem. Today we join the shepherds who were tending their sheep outside of town when they got the surprise of their life! Let yourself try to imagine what that experience must have been like. First, they were terrified. Who wouldn’t be?! But then they get this “good news for all the people…” Then they get the anthem by the heavenly choir. (After the angels left, I wonder how long it took for those guys to close their wide-open mouths. Or how long before any of them said anything.) Whatever discussion ensued, it ended with the only decision they could make: let’s go check this out!
You and I and everybody else are also invited to Bethlehem. We are invited to look around us every day and see what God is doing in the lives of other people. When God’s Spirit prompts you to do something, it may seem at least surprising to even consider, if not ridiculous. But hey, go and check it out. You know never what God may have there for you to experience!
Personal Worship Option:
Phillips Brooks wrote the words to one of my favorite Christmas hymns. May this verse be your prayer today:
O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray
cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!
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