The shepherds are ordinary people pursuing their everyday activities until God disturbs their status quo. Overwhelmingly actually. Encountering a terrifying presence they learn that a “saviour for all people” has been born today. Specifically, this saviour can be found now, in Bethlehem, and may be identified in the ordinariness of a cloth wrapped infant in a manger.

Such a visitation could be ignored. The shepherds may have passed on the opportunity to verify the report. Instead they press into the insights given them and encounter the saviour of all people. The news of a saviour, and perhaps the honour of being insiders to this intervention by God, fills them with thankfulness. They return “praising and glorifying God”.

For most of us, our invitation into this story is often the inverse of the shepherds. The invitation begins with the ordinary rather than with the equivalent of a terrifying angelic encounter. Maybe we have a suspicion that there has to be a presence behind the universe, or there is more to the world than that which can be seen, heard, measured or touched. The ordinary somehow hints at the extraordinary, at the transcendent.

Whatever the source of our wondering, God would have us press in to encounter the saviour Jesus. The one who saves to give Love, Purpose, Joy, Peace and Hope to our lives. May you encounter the Goodness of God in Jesus this Christmas. A saviour who opens Eternity for all. (John 11:25)