Have you ever gotten up in the morning expecting a regular day when somewhere along the way something happened to change your life forever? Maybe your boyfriend asked you to marry him out of the blue, or you received an unexpected promotion, or someone close unexpectedly passed away. Good or bad, what seemed to be a “normal” day ended up changing your life forever.

I remember the morning of the Oklahoma City bombing. Steve and I had been married the previous year and I was six months pregnant. Steve had to go to Enid for an insurance appointment and I went along with him. I was at the mall in the maternity store when the news came on the TV.  The bombing not only changed the lives of everyone in the Murray Building or in Oklahoma City, but it changed everyone in the state of Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Standard was born that day and we still live by it today.

A few years later and the World Trade Center came down. Everyone was going about business as usual, not expecting that the whole world would change that day. But every time we go to the airport or a federal building or every time we drive down a street and see the cement poles in front of a building, we are reminded our lives changed in a single moment on a single day.

I’m sure the shepherds in Bethlehem were going about their business as usual on that chilly night. Looking out through the dark night, fires dotted the hillsides where the men and boys tried to stay warm. Some were sitting keeping watch, maybe sipping a warm drink and telling stories to keep each other entertained. Some were already wrapped up in their cloaks trying to catch a few minutes sleep before their shift started. There were young boys proud of the fact they were old enough to stay out with the sheep all night and there were older men whose bones hurt and they wished they didn’t have to be outside in the cold night air.

Sometime between midnight and 3:00 in the morning, the darkness suddenly became as light as day. Every man and boy on those hillsides were immediately wide awake and aware that something spectacular was happening. A mighty angel stood before them and announced loud enough for everyone to hear, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:10-12) Then a whole company of angels filled the skies shouting, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

I love how the book “The Archko Volumes” (page 65) records the scene:

“Their shoutings would rise up in the heavens, and then would sink down in mellow strains, and roll along at the foot of the mountains, and die away in the most soft and musical manner they had ever heard; then it would begin again high up in the heavens, in the very vaults of the sky, and descend in sweet and melodious strains, so that they could not refrain from shouting and weeping at the same time. The light would seem to burst forth high up in the heavens and then descend in softer rays and light up the hills and valleys, making everything more visible than the light of the sun, though it was not so brilliant, but clearer, like the brightest moon.”

The moment that changed the universe when God became man was first announced to a group of common, uneducated shepherds. Why them? Maybe because here was a group of men who would accept the announcement without questioning if it were real or not, or if it was from God or not. But a group of men who quickly received the announcement, immediately left what they were doing, followed the instructions and found their Savior – just as the angels had said.