Each morning I read through the account of Christ’s birth in Luke 2 but there’s a phrase that has only started to impact my thinking the last couple of weeks.
“Everyone listened and was surprised.” Luke 2:18 CEV
Everyone! Who’s everyone?
The verses right before this have the shepherds running through the streets to find the baby they had been told about. The verse immediately following it tell us that Mary meditated on everything that the shepherds told her.
But who is the everyone?
“ So they went running and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the feeding box. 17 When they saw the baby, they told what the angels said about this child. 18 Everyone was surprised when they heard what the shepherds told them. 19 Mary continued to think about these things, trying to understand them.” Luke 2:16-19 ERV
The “everyone” was obviously more than just Mary and Joseph. One translation says the shepherds told everyone they saw about what the angels said. This isn’t very religious but the image I get in my head is one from the old western movies when someone finds gold.
They run into the saloon, out of breath, ordered a whisky and holler out “I’ve found the mother lode”! And EVERYONE stops to listen. This message that the shepherds gave was of more value than finding the mother lode – the love of God is more precious than silver, more costly than gold!
But back to the everyone…were these people neighbors of Mary and Joseph? Did they finally accept that Mary hadn’t been a promiscuous teenager whose hormones had run wild? We’re they strangers who had come to Bethlehem and registered in the census, who had heard the stories of the coming Messiah and now were “lucky” enough to be in the right place at the right time?
I really don’t know but I do know the shepherds were thrilled with the message they had received and were eager to share it.
Let’s be like the shepherds – let’s share the message with our group of “everyone”.