By R.A. Mathews

My friend Catherine was late for church one morning and hurried upstairs to the balcony. Normally, she likes to be up front on the first floor.

Once seated, she eyed a happy newborn in the congregation below her.  

“I needed to see something cheerful,” she told me. Catherine had just learned that her company was dissolving. She’s a single mom and was shaken by suddenly having no job.   

Catherine glanced at the baby’s parents and realized she knew them. After church, she went to hold the child, and that’s when it happened.  

“Catherine,” the baby’s father said. “You’re in!”  

“What do you mean?” she asked.  

“My company is going into your building. I told them about you, and you’re in — you don’t even have to move your stapler!”  

Some would call it a coincidence, but Catherine knew it was the Hand of God.  

There are many “coincidences” in Scripture. Here’s one on Christmas Day.  

When the Christmas Angel appeared to the Bethlehem shepherds, could he have also chosen the goat herders perhaps on a nearby hillside? 

No.

The angel said very little, but he does add why those shepherds are important to the Christmas story. Look closely at his words: 

“For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger” (Luke 2:10, 11, NKJV).

Did you see the reason the angel chose those shepherds? 

Many Christians ignore Jewish customs in the Old Testament. “Jesus changed everything,” they say. For them, it’s out with the old and in with the new.   

But the group “Jews for Jesus” has interesting information. Take Rabbi Jason Sobel, who says the Bethlehem shepherds were “Levitical” shepherds.

Big word, but it’s easy. 

The third book of the Old Testament is Leviticus. Together with Exodus, it contains the requirements for Jewish sacrifice. “Your lamb shall be without blemish… ” (Exodus 12:5, ESV).

Who do you think was charged with making that happen? The Bethlehem shepherds—the ones the Christmas Angel came to visit.

Rabbi Sobel says in a video posted online on December 23, 2017, that these Levitical shepherds provided the temple with the sacrificial lambs. 

Do you see now? 

On Christmas Day, as those shepherds knelt in awe before baby Jesus, they must have noticed a remarkable coincidence: The Lord was wrapped in swaddling cloths. That’s because the shepherds also used swaddling cloths. They wrapped the newborn lambs in this way to keep them from spot or blemish.  

God had well planned Christmas Day. At the birth of Christ, He quietly announced that Jesus would become the sacrificial Lamb. 

But this is where it gets tricky.

First-century Jews were deeply religious. They would have known that some 700 years earlier, Isaiah had prophesied about two things. First, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’” Second, Isaiah chapter 53, prophesying that Jesus would be “led as a lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 40:3; 53:7).

So, what did those shepherds understand that night as they knelt at the manger? How about the disciples who walked with Jesus three decades later? 

Clearly, John the Baptist knew. Look at what he said after baptizing Jesus: “The next day [John] saw Jesus coming to him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’ . . . the next day John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God’” (John 1:29-39, NASB).

But there’s more. 

“One of the two who heard John speak, and followed [Jesus], was Andrew…  He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah… ’” (John 1:40-41, NASB)

It’s easy to overlook Isaiah 53, but those expecting the Messiah must have wondered how the Deliverer could also be the sacrificial Lamb. We know. But it took the Resurrection. Only then did Isaiah’s prophecies become clear.

So, the Bethlehem shepherds probably didn’t understand what they saw that night, but God deliberately chose them. It wasn’t a coincidence. They swaddled the newborn lambs for sacrifice just as the Lord was swaddled at His birth.   

Like those shepherds, you may experience something astonishing and perhaps not understand for decades what God was doing in your life. Or the Lord’s handiwork may be as clear as Catherine’s new job that bright Sunday morning. 

Be on the lookout for what God is telling you. Listen and watch closely. 

God speaks through amazing “coincidences.”

This is an abridged chapter of the soon to be released volume, “Reaching to God – Christmas” by R.A. Mathews. Reprinted with permission.

Copyright © 2024 R.A. Mathews. All rights reserved.