The Typical Manger Scene (Luke 2:1-21)

A nativity set or manger scene is one of the most common Christmas decorations. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and brightness.

You might have a Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus lit up in your yard

One of my favorite memories as a child was when my mom would bring out the little nativity set with wooden pieces and she would let my brother and me set it up how we wanted.

It’s a fixture among Christmas decorations. And rightly so, because it shows the main characters who saw the birth of the Savior of the world!

tells us about that scene at the manger. And I just want to leave you with a brief thought about one set of those characters—the shepherds.

Be like the shepherds!

Let me recap their involvement in the nativity scene.

They’re busy at work, a usual night out in the field watching their flock.

Here comes this angel and they see the glory of God, and understandably they are filled with fear.

But then the angel tells them that the Savior has been born in Bethlehem, the city of David.

Then they get an angel choir performance. And at the end of the choir show, the angels are gone. There’s the shepherds. Standing in the field. I’m picturing the sheep even looking up like in a cartoon where they’re chewing on a piece of grass but their eyes are looking up at this strange site.

Then the shepherds are like maybe we should go see this...

So they do, and they found that God’s message was true. It was exactly as the Lord told them.