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When I was a child in Sunday school, my image of Christ was of a tall man with long, flowing hair—a handsome, rugged man with a gentle smile. He was always carrying a very white lamb perched peacefully on his shoulders. But that's not how the prophet Isaiah described the Messiah: "He has no form or comeliness; And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2).
Nothing about the arrival or appearance of Christ was expected.
Through Their EyesImagine you are in Jerusalem on the night of Christ's birth, and Jerusalem is crowded. The area around the temple is mobbed with people standing shoulder to shoulder, staring straight up into the sky.
"What are you looking at?" you ask.
"Nothing, I'm waiting," is the sharp reply.
"Waiting for what?" you want to know.
"Not what; it's who! We're waiting for the arrival of the Messiah."
You slip away from the mass of impatient men and women jockeying for a better position and head out into the countryside southwest of Jerusalem. It's quiet now, peaceful. You gaze up at the stars and are amazed that they seem so bright, so close, in the crisp night air. There's one in particular that's so bright it cuts through the darkness like a brilliant lantern. You follow. You walk about five miles and find yourself in the small town of Bethlehem.
"Nice night!" you say to a small group of shepherds as you catch up with them. You mean to ask them if they know of a good place to stay, but they're in a hurry, so you just follow. You arrive at a small barn and reason that they must be looking for shelter for themselves.
You go in. But something outrageous is going on here. There, lying in a cattle feed box, is a baby. The shepherds get on their knees, and you join them. You can't stand. There's such a swelling in your heart, you think you might burst. Deep inside your soul, you know the crowd in Jerusalem is standing in the wrong place. Those people have missed the miracle by five miles. They're standing, looking up, when the Messiah has come down.
Can you image if you had told the religious leaders of the day, "The Messiah is coming! His mother is an unmarried teenager, and he'll be born in a shed"? It would sound outrageous, irreverent, perhaps even blasphemous. Yet so many missed Jesus that night. They were so close, but so far away, like someone who's sat in church for 50 years and never has gotten the point. You can be inches away from Christ and still miss the gift. You can be a very religious person and never receive the hope and healing offered through the sacrifice Jesus made.
An Unlikely AudienceWhat did the shepherds understand that night? We'll never know. They knew that there was something very unusual about the child. Very few human eyes have seen the sky fit to burst with the presence of angels. Few human ears have heard singing like that or such a message directly from the throne room of heaven:
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