God Loves the Ordinary People

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. Luke 2:8-9 ESV

As we learned yesterday, God chose shepherds. This was to show us His grace and mercy. As we look at the pages of scripture, we find a story of God’s calling of a young boy whom God wanted to serve as King. He was a shepherd. He wasn’t big and strong, mature, or highly educated. He was a simple and ordinary shepherd boy (2 Samuel 7:8).

God chooses the ordinary to do the extraordinary. The shepherds in today’s passage were out keeping watch over their flock. An angel suddenly appeared to them! This was an extraordinary event; the intensity of light was overwhelming. It was so amazing and supernatural that it scared them. The fear that these shepherds experienced would have been like what Mary's relative Zechariah experienced when the Angel Gabriel appeared to him (Luke 1:12,19). It wasn't just the power of the light around the angel though that was surely overwhelming, it was the glory and presence of God himself radiating around this angel's announcement of Christ's birth. The angel’s presence was terrifying because it was something they had never seen before! Anyone who would have been there and seen it would have been scared. The Bible tells us that they had great fear. Being afraid of something like this is normal.

The shepherds here in Luke’s gospel likely symbolize all of the ordinary people in the world that would receive the good news of Jesus Christ. At first when hear about God, we may have feelings of fear. We may think that God couldn’t really love us if we keep messing up. We may be afraid that God would be angry with us if He really knew all the bad things we’ve done. Yet here we see that it’s normal to be afraid of God at times, but the good news is Jesus. He takes our fears and gives us faith. He takes our hurts and gives us healing. He takes our anxiety and stress and gives us peace. God loves ordinary people—people who aren’t perfect, people who aren’t popular or powerful. God offers ordinary people and extraordinary life of faith, hope, and love!

Questions for reflection and discussion
1. How are you ordinary? How are you like everyone else? Are you ok with that?
2. Talk about why you think God loves ordinary people so much.

Prayer
Lord, I thank You that I don’t have to be extraordinary for You to love me. You take me as I am. You make me more and more like You over the years. I love You. In Jesus' name, amen.