The Good Shepherd appears among the shepherds (Luke 2:8-20)

            The next workplace encounter comes in the very next chapter, a few miles down the road from the Temple. A group of shepherds watching their flocks by night are visited by an angelic host announcing the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:9). Shepherds were generally regarded as disreputable, and others looked down on them. But God looks down on them with favor. Like Zechariah the priest, the shepherds have their workday interrupted by God in a surprising way. Luke describes a reality in which encounter with the Lord is not reserved for Sundays, retreats or mission trips. Instead, each moment appears as a moment of potential in which God can reveal himself. The daily grind may serve to dull our spiritual senses, like the people of Lot’s generation, whose routines of “eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building” blinded them to the coming judgment on their city (Luke 17:28-30).[1] But God is able to break into the midst of everyday life with his goodness and glory.