I think it’s instructive to remember that when Christ was born in Bethlehem, Judea, the official announcement by Heaven that the greatest event in human history, up to that time, had occurred, was given in a dark field, outside of the cities and towns, to a handful of anonymous shepherds.

While emperors planned, and powerful men and women spun designs for conquest and acquisition; the event that would shape the destiny of all  mankind, that would change the face of the entire earth; that would establish forever the point from which time itself would be measured, had played itself out in a forgotten corner of a minor province. And no-one knew except a handful of shepherds.

I’m not certain where shepherds stood on the social scale of Judea, I suspect they were closer to the bottom than the top. But for one glorious night, in an empty field, while all the world slept, they alone knew.