Good News to the Poor

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” Isaiah 61:1a (NIV)

New parents sometimes mail out birth announcements to share their joy over the family addition. After the birth of Christ, God orchestrated a divine birth announcement through an angel of the Lord—but the recipients were surprising. Rather than delivering this news to the religious elite or royal officials, God first informed a group of humble shepherds.

The significance of this choice should not be overlooked. In first-century Jewish society, shepherds were social outcasts. They were viewed as unclean, uneducated, and unreliable—definitely not the sort of people to first inform about the birth of the long-awaited King.

Yet this divine birth announcement to shepherds fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy about the coming Messiah. Seven centuries earlier, Isaiah had declared that the Anointed One would "bring good news to the poor, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom for the captives, and…comfort all who mourn” (Isaiah 61:1-2). The shepherds' role in the Christmas story was no accident - it was a powerful demonstration of exactly who this Savior came for.

From the very beginning, Jesus' birth signaled a dramatic reversal of worldly values. While society might write off the poor and marginalized, while the elite might avoid the downtrodden and despised, Jesus came specifically to bring them joy. The announcement to the shepherds was the first whisper of his upside-down kingdom.