***{The Shepards}***

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night." (Luke 2:8)

Of all the people that the angle could have come to, it was the lowly shepherds in the field that night. With so many people coming into the city to be taxed I'm sure it was a quiet break for them to be away from the commotion that was going on. And then... an Angel came to them and told them what was going on. That the Christ child was born. Feeling the need to see this babe they made their way to the stable where the child was. I wonder if they understood the significant of them being there. Christ, who would become our shepherd, and leave the 99 to look for the one {me}, was being met by these simple men.

"As families throughout the land prepared their symbolic meal of lamb, the Lamb of God was being born... But Passover also meant springtime—lambing season. A few miles away, shepherds were helping to bring new lambs into the world. Deemed by the upper classes as men of naught, the shepherds were nevertheless saviors to the sheep. Besides assisting in the births, they nourished, gathered, comforted, and protected their flocks, sometimes risking their lives to defend them. There was deep irony in the fact that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, would be deemed by the Pharisees and Sadducees as a man of naught while in the very act of giving His life to save them.

But there is more to this symbolism of shepherd and sheep. One scholar notes that a tower called Migdal Eder—the watchtower of the flock—stood on the road between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The sheep that were gathered there belonged to the temple flock, from which the sacrificial lambs would be taken. Some Jews believed that the Savior would be born in Bethlehem and revealed at Migdal Eder (see Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, 4 vols. [1887–1900], 1:269).

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). How fitting that the angelic announcement was made to humble men serving the needs of sheep that might die in similitude of the Lamb of God. But that has not changed. It is still to those who are feeding His sheep that He reveals himself. It is to those who serve that the testimony is revealed,..." (Ensign 1998, "Tasting the Bread of Life" by Sherrie Johnson)

(picture by Liz Lemon Swindle)