They Wondered At Those Things

And all they that heard wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

Perhaps thirty years later when Jesus began His public ministry, some form of this story we have related so far in Luke's account of the Nativity was still circulating. Granted, Jewish children were born most often as messy and often as humanly possible. If that sounds disgusting, keep in mind any population that does not marry and give in marriage and have at least enough offspring to replace themselves is in for a dramatic fall. We know that Joseph and Mary had at least five other children (check out Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3) but the fact that the eighteenth verse of Luke 2 -- the "they" are people the shepherds told about Jesus being born in Bethlehem and being the "Savior, which is Christ the Lord" and anywhere they went, I expect -- has people reacting to the SHEPHERDS,

for a change in a good way (remembers, shepherds provided a vital service for the community, but there are reasons they kept out of town!), and not even so much to them as to what the shepherds told them, how they were in the fields watching their flocks and BAM the angel of the Lord appeared to them and announced the Savior being born -- to a Jewish audience, this was (and is!) an especially big deal for this had been promised by God for thousands of years -- and told the shepherds how to find this baby and BAM a multitude of the heavenly host appears praising God and saying glory to God and peace and good will on earth. And with that paragraph I have summed up verses eight through fifteen, but I urge you to read them again to get the impact.

The fact that the shepherds were the ones telling the story likely gave "they that heard" reason to believe this was true; that is, that the shepherds were not exaggerating for, it is ugly to say yet let us say it, there was and is class prejudice in nearly any community based on what you do for a living, and often that is, seen as a determinant of how close to God you can be. The fact that the shepherds were the ones telling anyone with earshot what had happened to them and what they had seen gave and gives credence to this baby Jesus -- and later the adult Jesus -- being who God said He is and Jesus Himself being Who He says He is credence to the average man, woman, and child walking the streets and not just the "feel" of an official account. What the shepherds told made more sense!