News Flash!

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

In the second chapter and eleventh verse of Luke, we come to the angel of God still speaking to the shepherds who have overcome their initial terror at the sight of what may look to any casual early-morning observers of this scene as a star suddenly becoming very very bright. (Or not; for a standard of comparison, check out the resurrected and ascended Jesus' appearance to Saul on the road to Damascus from Acts 9; by verse four, Saul has the light shine around him and hears Jesus' voice, and verse seven tells us Saul's friends heard the voice, but saw no man and no light.) And this is about a recent event -- it is not a prophecy, though the shepherds who like any orthodox Jews would have been raised learning the Law and the Prophets (our Old Testament) would realize it fulfills them.

"For unto you is born this day" -- our present tense means that it has just happened or is happening at that moment. (Since we are on verse eleven, we can go with it just happened and Mary is getting the baby Jesus swaddled now.) "In the city of David" -- any practicing, believing, and even moderately educated Jew will know this is Beth-lehem, even if they do not know where it is mentioned (in the book of the prophet Micah, fifth chapter and second verse) and they may remember that it is where David, the shepherd boy, slayer of Goliath, and future king, was born a thousand years ago -- before this scene takes place, that is -- from stories they were told as a child. (How do you think books gets written?) THEN we come to what should be the most anticipated point ever!

"A Savior, which is Christ the Lord." Not to downplay this, but the Jews -- indeed, anybody who had been reading and pondering the Jewish writings that now form the Old Testament of the Bible -- knew that their God had announced many times through Moses and the prophets that He promised a Savior. Like our own studies of Bible prophecy now, whether you were scholar, scribe, or shepherd influenced how you read the prophecies of a coming Savior and what He would do! The term Christ which means Anointed One does not appear in the Old Testament, but the shepherds hearing the angel knew what that meant. Of course, curiosity at what would prompt God to send one of His messenger out of heaven may have prompted them to go too ... but that continues this story.