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Who's there? What? What do you want? Oh. Well, come over by the fire. It's cold tonight. Sit down.

We don't get many visitors out here. Nobody bothers much with shepherds. We're the most despised class of people in Israel. Oh, most of the proper folk down the road there in Jerusalem won't have anything to do with us. They think we're all thieves. I won't say that some aren't, but, well, don't worry about your purse while you're with our group.

Does the smell bother you? I didn't notice it myself. You understand we are in the fields for weeks at a time. Don't have many opportunities to wash. Of course, with so many sheep, well, at least we are in the open air.

I love these dark, crisp nights when the stars are so thick. I wouldn't trade it for life in the city, even though it would be nice to go up to the temple more often. What? You think that just because we are shepherds we cannot love God? What about King David? He was a shepherd, a man after God's heart he was. He loved the temple. Or are you like everyone else who look down on us because we don't observe all their religious traditions? As if we might be so many Pharisees! But we're out in the fields.

What is it that you want with us? The twelve voices of Christmas? You want to know if we're one of those twelve voices? Yes. We are the voices of declaration. We remember that night. How could we forget? A shepherd doesn't have much excitement in his life. Our days are spent with the animals, searching for what little grass we can find. In the evening, we take the sheep to some shelter, a pen or a sheepfold, and take turns watching. There are still lions and other wild animals in many places.

That night was like any other. We were tired. It was quiet. The fire felt good against the cold. Suddenly, the darkness was split with a blinding flash. We fell to the ground in fear, completely overcome. I remember covering my head and my eyes. I was terrified. Someone, some being was there! It was the angel of God. The angel told us that earlier that evening, just across the fields in the village of Bethlehem, the Messiah had been born--the One all our people were waiting for. He even told us how to find Him--to go into Bethlehem and seek Him in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes. I thought that strange. Is that where the Messiah should be? He shouldn't be wrapped in bundles of cloth and in a manger! He should be wrapped in purple at the king's palace or maybe at the temple itself. But what do I know? I'm only a shepherd.

Well, we were just beginning to recover our senses when this angel was joined by a whole army of angels. Suddenly the sky was filled with them. They were praising God, saying, "Glory to God in the highest!" And louder than rolling thunder were the booming voices of this angelic host. Then they finished. Just as quickly as they came, the angels were gone. It was dark and still. We looked at one another. We couldn't stay there. We had to leave the fields and go into Bethlehem to find Messiah for ourselves.

The village was crowded with visitors who were in town for a big Roman census. So many people! We went to the inn, to the stables out back. Here we were, a gaggle of dirty shepherds. A man we took to be the baby's father stopped us just inside the door, anxious to preserve his wife's privacy, I think. We tried to explain about the angels, and then the soft voice of the baby's mother called. "It's all right, Joseph. Let them in."

We made our way to the back of the stable, and there was the babe. Something to make angels sing! But what could a shepherd do? We fell on our knees before Him. I wouldn't trade that moment even if I could be the sweetest smelling priest in the temple. We lingered a while and talked to the parents. I told them again that we had seen an angel and what he had told us about the child, and that he even told us that the baby would be lying in a manger. That's how we knew this was the Savior, Christ the Lord. I said, "And then that one angel was joined by an army of angels, all praising God for this child. We had to come and see for ourselves. We had to praise Him, too."

Well, by now you are thinking all this sounds pretty crazy. Shepherds? Why would God reveal the birth of the Messiah first to shepherds? I'll tell you. I don't know. But I'm not complaining. We finished talking and the stable turned quiet. We all were looking at that baby. Then for some reason, I thought of the four lepers of Samaria. Maybe you know the story. At one time in our history, the Syrians besieged Jerusalem and the city was starving. So four lepers decided to leave Jerusalem and give themselves up to the Syrians in hopes of getting some food. But when they arrived at the enemy camp, the lepers found it empty. All the Syrians were gone. These lepers went tent to tent and found food, water, clothes--everything they could want! They, too, wondered at their good fortune. One of the lepers said, "This is a day of good news, and we cannot remain silent." So they went back to the city to tell everyone their good news.

That's how I felt. We, the undesirables and not so much better in many eyes than lepers, had found the Christ-child. Others must hear this good news, too. So we left that cattle stall and told everyone we saw that the Savior had been born in Bethlehem. That's how we became the voices of declaration. Somehow God had decided that we--simple, smelly shepherds--would be the ones to spread the word that the Savior had come. The Pharisees in Jerusalem who had studied the law and kept all the commandments, they were not the first ones to hear the news. Lonely, lowly shepherds became the voices of declaration. We blended our voices with the twelve voices of Christmas.

We're the voices of declaration. You wouldn't recognize our names, but that night God took those who were last and made them first. First to declare the tidings of great joy.