A Concert To Remember

By Peder Eide
Guest Writer

CBN.com – The life of a shepherd was 24/7. Sheep all day and all night. A baa baa here, a baa baa there everywhere a baa, baa. You get the picture. It was also a very lowly position in the social class. Near the bottom. It was a hard, long monotonous, occupation and something you did because it was what your family had done for generations -- tend sheep.

In any nativity scene I see during the Christmas season, I always look for the shepherds because their introduction to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords was so dramatic. I mean, imagine being in the field where you have been gazing across the same scenery, listening to the same sounds, smelling the same odors (use your imagination), for days weeks, maybe months. Then all of a sudden, in the middle of the night your mundane life is interrupted by a blinding light surrounding an angelic being who is telling you,“Be not afraid.” (I appreciate those words because I would probably be losing it right then and there.) Then, the angel exclaims: “I bring you tidings of great joy! Christ the Lord had been born! The Prince of Peace! The Messiah is here!”

I wonder how it connected with those shepherds.

Did stories of prophecies and promises that they had been told by their elders and even told to their own children race across their minds? Did the dots start to connect? What emotions were welling up in them? Could the very thing they thought they would never get to see or sometimes doubted even being true be unfolding right in front of them?

To top it all off in the midst of this overwhelming moment, a thousand angels appear and sing “Glory to God in the highest and peace to men on whom God’s favor rests.” That had to be one amazing concert.

Something felt fulfilled. Like when your dad promises to take you fishing in 2 weeks and for 14 days you wait, trust, hope, and anticipate the coming moment to hear your dad say “Let’s go fishing!” Right then your heart goes “I knew it, I knew it would happen.” It’s an affirmation of the love you always knew was there.

In one of the songs I co-wrote for my Christmas CD, my favorite line is, “God has assembled all those who have wept, He promised His promises all will be kept.”* The shepherds were now tasting the goodness of God keeping His word.

They had to go see Him! I think they ran. They couldn’t wait to see. The sheep could wait. Their hearts could not. Their hope was renewed. Their world was going to change, and at the same time, their lives were already changing.

And after these simple sheep herders had gone and visited the first”Nativity Scene”, they went and told everybody what they had seen and heard. Why? Because they knew it was true. They had experienced it first-hand.

Those lowly shepherds displayed the qualities we should aspire to --confidence, courage, peace, passion -- all because a Heavenly Father showed His love by sending His Son to live, walk, talk, die and rise again so that we might have life!

Why? Because God always keeps His promises.

This passage was inspired by the song “Love Has Come” featured on the CD, Christmas Come On In by Peder Eide.

More about The Nativity Story on CBN.com

Order your copy of Taste and See.

Praise & Worship leader Peder Eide’s new “Taste Worship” events coincide with the release of his new, critically-acclaimed CD, Taste & See. His “Taste Worship” events are highly interactive experiences that strengthen families in a worship lifestyle, helping families discover creative ways to live out their faith together. Peder and his wife Sherri have four children of their own all under the age of 10, with their most recent addition being a little girl they adopted from South Korea.

More about The Nativity Story on CBN.com

Peder has been ministering to youth and students for over 13 years. For more information on Peder’s ministry, visit www.TasteWorship.com.