Dec 22 - Good News

Good News

Thursday, December 22, 2022

By Geoff Posegate

Scripture: Luke 1:1-20

Key Verse: Luke 2:16
“So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.”

Have you ever felt like you were just not the kind of person who could or should get lots of good news in this life?

In the 2009 film, “The Blind Side,” a poverty-stricken young man named Michael Oher (now a retired professional football player) is taken into the home of the well-to-do Touhy family of Memphis, Tennessee. He is stunned when he realizes he is being given his own room, much less his own bed. Michael assumed good news like this would never be a part of his life path.

Looking at the realities of our world, we can assume that some people get good news and some people don’t, and that’s just the way it is. Judean shepherds certainly knew this to be true. Shepherding was not the idyllic, pristine look we give it in our Nativity scenes at Christmastime. Shepherding was dirty, transient work, looked down upon by most people in first century cultures. People assumed shepherds were of low character and untrustworthy. Only the lowest of the low stooped to shepherding sheep and goats. They were not people who experienced much good news in life, if any.

Luke specifies that after the shepherds heard the news of Jesus’ birth, they “hurried” to find him. Was the hurry just due to curiosity or fear of missing out? Or was it more? I notice the number of times in the preceding verses the word translated “you” in English appears. “I bring you good news…” (verse 10.) “A Savior has been born to you…” (verse 11.) “This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby…” (verse 12.) Perhaps the shepherds rushed to see if it was all true because of the staggering possibility that the good news actually was for them; that they really had been chosen to get good news, maybe for the first time in their lives.

Maybe because of illness, someone’s death, job loss, depression, a relationship ending, or any number of reasons, you feel good news just isn’t in the cards for you. If so, you’re in good company; in the company of the first ragged crew to get the news that Jesus was born. Maybe this year a Christmas angel (messenger from God) wants you to be the first to get life-saving, life-changing good news. Michael Oher could not imagine the good news that was ahead for him and how his life would change. Maybe that’s true for you, too.

Loving God, rescue me from the lie that good news is for everyone else except me. Stand me with the stunned shepherds. With them, bowl me over with the message that the good news actually is for me; for us. Focus my mind and heart of those who don’t believe good news is for them this Christmas, because of what’s happen to them, where they came from, who they are, or who they’re not. Use me as your messenger of good news to them. I pray in the name of the One who is the good news. Amen.