What a night!
by Pastor Tim Castle-Schmidt
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When they saw this, they made known what had been told to them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them (Luke 2:17,18).
Read Luke 2:8–20
Did you sleep well last night, on Christmas Eve, the night the Saviour was born? I don’t reckon the shepherds there that night would have slept much.
Imagine, for a second, that you were one of those shepherds; do you think you would have slept when you returned from the stable? Or maybe you didn’t even try, curling up in some hay in the corner, not wanting to miss a moment of this precious child’s first day. Because I reckon it would have been a pretty ordinary sleep that anyone got that night.
Then I wonder how well Jesus slept. The first night as a human, totally dependent on Mary and Joseph, totally human, and yet physically unable to even tell anyone he was also totally God – the God of the universe unable to speak!
As we unpack the Christmas story yet again, every year, I am drawn to think deeply about Jesus becoming human. And then I think about those shepherds who only knew him as human. And yet they saw the star and the singing angels. God revealed to them something that no one else knew … all on that night.
So, I wonder what they did the following morning? They probably went back to their sheep and wondered what had happened.
Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to do: go back to our lives knowing that, on that special night, God has entered our world and climbed into our skin. Now, that would be life-changing. What a night!
Lord Jesus, as we come to terms with your birth at Christmas, remind us to take this best of news back into our ordinary lives so that we might maintain our surprise and joy. Amen.
Tim Castle-Schmidt is the pastor of Onkaparinga Lutheran Parish in the Adelaide Hills. After spending many years as a teacher in Lutheran schools, he finally listened to God’s call to the pastoral ministry. Tim is passionate about social justice and engaging the church with contemporary society. Tim shares his life with Fiona, Miranda, a Jack Russell called Otto and 11 chooks. By his own admission, Tim Castle-Schmidt is a broken man. Broken in body, mind and spirit, he is learning that God is at work in and through human brokenness. For while God has not ‘fixed’ him, God continues to work through his brokenness to connect with the world.
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