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Why I can't wait to tell you about baby Jesus

What did the Spanish fireman name his twin boys? — Hose A and Hose B!’ Often when we hear something funny we can’t wait to tell some one else.

Sometimes it’s an exciting piece of news in your own life, which you can’t wait to share — ‘he’s proposed’, ‘I’m pregnant’, ‘I got the job’.

For the shepherds, the birth of Jesus was like the most absurd thing to make you smile and the best news ever, all rolled into one. So, having been to Bethlehem and found Joseph and Mary and the baby laying in a manger just as the angels told them, they could not help it, ‘they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child’ (Luke 2.17 ).

They had been told that a Saviour had been born who is Christ the Lord. They had heard the message of God glorified and God’s favour which brings peace to the earth. The time for the fulfilment of all God’s promises of salvation, which litter the Old Testament, had begun! And that meant breath-taking news which they could not keep to themselves. It meant, for example, that…

* Bad people can go to heaven

What a joke! But Jesus came ‘to save his people from their sins’. And that means that God has a place in his heart for the worst of us. Shepherding, sitting out all through the cold nights keeping watch over a flock of mangy sheep was, as we can imagine, hardly the most sought after job in first century Palestine. It was often, therefore, the employment of ex-offenders and outcasts. But it was to underline God’s love for the worst of us that the news of the Saviour was first sent to the shepherding fraternity. The baby of the cradle would become the Christ of the cross. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. And feel the full force of that wonderful word ‘whoever’. We are all invited to believe and be saved!

* The big cheeses do not win

The bullying powers of this world often make the lives of ordinary men and women a misery. In our day, misguided wars and fanatical men of violence continue to cost many lives. The big cheeses who dominate business, politics and the media (who make drugs and immorality ‘fashionable’) mislead people into false world views and destructive lifestyles and dump them. In the first century, it was the military might of Rome and its emperor Augustus which pushed people like Joseph and Mary around. And behind these worldly powers are the even greater spiritual forces of the world, the flesh and the devil. But this child of Bethlehem would grow to defeat them all. How marvellously ridiculous! Beaten by a baby! Risen from the dead, the cradle and the cross would lead to the crown. Now there is a wise and loving Lord under whose reign all may find life.

* The world will be transformed

We all have dreams of the world as it ought to be — no more injustice, sorrow or pain, no more poverty or death. The shepherds had heard the angel song of glory to God and peace (shalom — total wellbeing) on earth. The child in the manger who came from heaven and will lead his people to a new heavens and new earth.

This most certainly added up to the good news of great joy which is for all people. And the best part about it was that it was not a pipedream. The shepherds knew it was true. They had met the angels. They had checked out the manger. They had seen the Christ. It was true then. It is true now.

John Benton