Good News of Great Joy for the Least Likely
An Advent Devotional on the Shepherds and the Way of God’s Kingdom
“And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.”
— Luke 2:8–9
No Christmas program is complete without its little band of gunnysack shepherds. Frightened by the angel’s sudden appearance, they marvel at the good news from the angel and rush to Bethlehem to see the Savior-King. As they return to their flocks, they praise God and tell all who will listen about the birth of the chosen Child. They finish spreading the good tidings, leave the stage, and we hardly give them another thought.
Yet in Christ’s day, shepherds were not at all upper class. They were not even middle class. In fact, they were barely low class. They stood near the very bottom of the social ladder in Jewish society, sharing the same unenviable status as tax collectors and dung sweepers. It is striking—and telling—that only Luke mentions them.
Some shepherds earned their poor reputations, but many others were victims of a cruel stereotype. The religious leaders maligned the shepherd’s good name; rabbis banned pasturing sheep and goats in Israel except on desert plains. Shepherds were viewed as religiously suspect and socially unreliable.
The Mishnah, Judaism’s written record of the oral law, reflects this prejudice by referring to shepherds in belittling terms. One passage describes them as “incompetent.” Another states that no one should feel obligated to rescue a shepherd who has fallen into a pit. Other documents indicate that shepherds were deprived of all civil rights. They could not fulfill judicial offices or be admitted in court as witnesses. Jewish rabbinic writings even suggest that buying wool, milk, or a lamb from a shepherd was forbidden, on the assumption that it would be stolen property.
Into this social context of religious snobbery and class prejudice, God’s Son stepped forth.
How surprising—and how significant—that God handpicked lowly, unpretentious shepherds to be the first to hear the joyous news: “It’s a boy, and He’s the Messiah!” What an affront this must have been to the religious leaders, who were so conspicuously absent from the divine mailing list.
Why did the announcement come to them at all? Why not to priests and kings? Who were these men that they should be eyewitnesses of God’s glory and receive history’s greatest birth announcement?
I have to admit that if it were left up to me, I would probably have chosen a different group to be the very first recipients of this message. I might have even sent the angels to Rome—to the very palace of Caesar himself. From the world’s perspective, who better to carry the message of a Savior to the entire world than the ruler of the most powerful nation on earth?
But that is not how God chose to do things.
In fact, God has never operated according to the conventions of human wisdom. The apostle Paul makes this unmistakably clear when he writes:
“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”
— 1 Corinthians 1:27
And here the story of the shepherds reveals something even deeper: the character of God’s Kingdom is not only proclaimed in the message itself, but embodied in the people to whom that message is first entrusted.
The gospel announcement does not merely say something about God’s Kingdom—it shows us what that Kingdom is like. From the very beginning, God signals that His reign will not advance through prestige, power, or privilege. Instead, it comes through humility, dependence, and grace. The choice of shepherds is not incidental; it is revelatory. The Kingdom of God belongs to people who know they have nothing to offer but open hands.
Years later, Jesus would make this same truth explicit in the first of the beatitudes:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
— Matthew 5:3
The shepherds were poor in spirit long before the phrase was spoken. They knew what it meant to live on the margins, to be overlooked, dismissed, and underestimated. And precisely because of that, they were ready to receive the Kingdom—not as a reward to be earned, but as a gift to be received.
The message of God sending His Son into the world to save hopeless sinners is not to be accepted or rejected on the basis of the social standing of those who proclaim it. You cannot be coerced or manipulated into trusting Jesus, because the power of the gospel is not found in the credentials, influence, or strength of the messenger—but in the transforming power of the message itself.
And perhaps that is why the shepherds matter far more than we usually realize. They remind us that God’s grace does not arrive through impressive channels. It comes to the overlooked, the dismissed, the ordinary, and the humble. The glory of the Lord shone not in a palace, but in a pasture. The first witnesses were not the powerful, but the poor. And the good news was entrusted to those the world had already written off.
Reflection Questions
- What does God’s choice of the shepherds reveal about the kind of Kingdom Jesus came to establish?
- Where do you see the values of God’s Kingdom colliding with the values of our culture?
- What might it look like for you to live more fully as someone who is “poor in spirit” this Advent season?
- Are there people or places you tend to overlook that God may be using to reveal His grace?
Prayer
King Jesus,
Thank You for good news of great joy that comes to the least likely. Thank You for a Kingdom built not on status or strength, but on grace, humility, and mercy. Free us from trusting in human measures of worth, and teach us to receive Your Kingdom with open hands and humble hearts. Help us reflect the character of Your Kingdom in how we live, love, and bear witness to the gospel.
Amen.