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‘And there were shepherds in the same country abiding in the field, and keeping watch by night over their flock. And an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.’
Luk_2:8-9 (R.V.)
I. Announced by angels.—The coming of the Lord was announced by angels. It was impossible that it should not be accompanied by some trailing clouds of the glory of heaven; the angels, they told His birth—it could not be otherwise; angels, they must accompany their King; angels, they must for one moment say their say to men before they returned and left Him in the home that He had chosen to be His.
II. Upon earth.—The angels did not sing in the mid-space where they were not to be heard by the ears of men, or seen by mortal eyes, but they announced it upon earth, for there was to be the sphere of their Lord’s captivity, and the object of His coming was that He might dwell upon earth.
III. In the night.—Not in the broad glare of day, not where all men might see and gaze astonished for a moment, and then turn upon their paces and be gone. No; in the quietness and stillness of the night, that men might know that the meaning of this great event that had come to pass was not to be caught by the eye of sinners, not to be apprehended by the natural man, not to be seen by every one, but only by those who lent themselves to its meaning.
IV. To shepherds.—Not to the scribe in his study poring over his books; not to the Pharisee, enjoying himself in luxurious ease; not to the great ones of the earth, amidst their schemes and their intrigues for political or other objects; but to the simple ones, to the shepherds intent upon their business, living a toilsome life, and spending that life in the discharge of duty. The angels appeared not to mankind universally—they would not have listened to them—but they appeared to individuals.
(a) The Gospel message is an individual message.
(b) The Gospel message is an appeal to faith, just as the message of the angels was an appeal to the faith of the shepherds.
Bishop Creighton.