Day 13: Uncomplicated

Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child.

Luke 2:17

Unstudied, uncomplicated, coarse, simpleminded. Neither reviled nor revered, they were the men of the fields, the men who could exist as part of a society and still be as far from it as they chose. An occupation fit for the unfit or unfittable, and thus attractive to such. These men, who likely communicated most effectively in grunts and mutterings, would be the first human heralds of Messiah. Every part of this nativity tale screams of its own backwardness, meekness, unlikelihood. 

So what is our excuse? Have the gruff and grunting shepherds proven themselves greater go-betweens than we? They, without commission, proclaimed that which they had heard from angels. Do we, with clear command, proclaim that which we have experienced with Christ? Do we find ourselves in lower estate, or more humble means than those agrestic herders? If so, we might be proven even more useful in the backwards kingdom of our Lord! But if not, and almost a certainty we are not, how much more enabled and equipped we are to shine forth the coming of our Lord, whom we already know well and love! 

We are not all missionaries in the formal sense, but we are all on mission. Perhaps the greater part of this mission has become fighting against all which entangles us and the many hindrances riddled throughout our lives because we are not simple shepherds. Oh to be an uncomplicated wanderer with all of the boldness and simplicity of mind to speak all that I ought without reserve! Lord make me a shepherd! Strip away every complication, haughtiness, and dignity which has handicapped the heralding due from my lips!