11“For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” 12 “And this will be the sign to you: You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”—15”So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. 17Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying that was told them concerning this Child.” Luke 2:11- 12 & 15-17 (NKJV)
We find here the simplest expression of the Christian walk; it contains the announcement from the angels, and the shepherd‘s reaction to the ir words; but what powerful implications are found in our being obedient to these few verses.
First of all we are to come and see; the angel was specific, it was the Savior that he was declaring to them, and to Whom he was sending them, not the manger, or Mary and Joseph, it was Jesus Who was the central figure in the angel’s message. It is all about Jesus, it was always all about Jesus, never about the other figures, never about the furnishings or the location, it’s still about Him, the One Who can change our lives.
After having seen Jesus (experienced, come to know Him), they were quick to tell others Who it was that they had seen (experienced, come to know). These two statements contain all that we need to know about how we are to reach the unsaved for Christ Jesus. We must first of all come to Him ourselves; we must have our own personal encounter that results in our realizing Who this Jesus is, and our need for a personal relationship with Him.
The rest is simple; we go and tell others what we have ourselves experienced and know to be true about Jesus. It is not rocket science, we do not need a degree in Divinity or Theology or the like, we need only to have experienced Him for ourselves and that experience will drive us to share what we now know to be the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Gospel.
