Of all the things and people to be present at the birth of Jesus Christ, there were shepherds! I would probably have been more surprised if there were not shepherds. After all, David was a shepherd boy from Bethlehem. David taught us to pray, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Ps 23:1). And Christ fulfills David.
Jesus was born to die, because we are born to live
I once came across a beautiful image online of a medieval depiction of Christ’s Nativity. In the background of that image, hanging discreetly over the heads of Mary and Joseph and above the infant lying in the manger, was a crucifix. In the comments of the post where the image was shared, in a typical display of 21st-century sarcastic cynicism, someone wrote, “Spoiler alert!”