Good News for the Lowest
The Savior didn’t come to improve us but to resurrect us.
By Rich Bitterman
The wind moved low across the Judean hills like a tired sigh. It whispered through olive branches and crawled over the backs of sleeping sheep. A fire crackled near a ring of stones, its embers rising into the dark as if trying to reach stars that would not answer. A shepherd stretched his legs, rubbed his knees, and looked out into the black. Somewhere a lamb bleated, thin and restless.
IMAGE: Pastor Rich Bitterman
It was a night like any other. Until it wasn’t.
Without warning, the world tilted. Light exploded and not like morning, soft and slow, but like a door yanked open between heaven and earth. The sky did not glow. It blazed. The air thickened, charged with something weightier than weather. It pressed on their lungs and made their hearts stumble. And standing inside that glory was someone too clean for the world.
An angel.
He stood. The ground beneath him bore his presence like a mountain bears snow. His face did not flicker. It scorched. These men had fought off wolves, chased thieves, buried stillborn lambs with their own hands, but this, this was something else entirely.
And they were terrified.
The voice came, steady and low, strong enough to silence fear at its root.
“Do not be afraid.”
Not a warning. A mercy. It fell over them like cool water on a burn.
“I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today, in the city of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord.”
A birth, in Bethlehem. For you.
They had no titles or social rank. Yet the angel didn’t say, “A Savior has been born.” He said, “Born to you.” The sentence landed with weight, too large for one moment to carry. It felt like the sky had spoken directly into their chests.
And then the sky split wider.
A multitude arrived like the tide crashing over itself. They filled the air. Countless. Fierce. Alive. Not singing, but speaking in perfect rhythm, as if their words shaped the wind.
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”
It was an eruption.
Then, silence. Thick, holy silence. The kind that leaves behind a ringing.
The light faded. The stars returned to their places, blinking as if nothing had happened. The sheep stirred. A lamb cried again, this time softer. And the shepherds looked at each other with wide eyes and breath they had not realized they were holding.
They ran.
The fire was left behind. So were their cloaks. They moved like men possessed, feet pounding over hard-packed soil, through thickets and doorways, calling out, knocking, searching. The village was asleep. No one knew what had just happened on the hills.
Bethlehem was a poor man’s town. It had no palace, no gate, no torch-lit street. But inside a crude shelter carved from stone or built beside beasts, they found a girl, hardly more than a child, cradling something the size of a loaf of bread, swaddled in cloth strips meant for the poor.
No halo hovered. No light spilled from the child’s skin. His fists clenched. His face twitched. His breathing was shallow and new.
But it was Him.
Faith sees what the eyes alone never could.
Mary did not rise or speak. She listened. Every word the shepherds shared poured into her heart like oil, and she kept it there. Her eyes stayed on the child, wide and wet, half-exhausted, half-stunned, fully aware that she held something more than promise. She held the Promised One.
And then the shepherds were gone.
They walked into the same night, under the same stars, but they were not the same men. Their mouths opened with praise, with declaration, with fire. They could not keep it in. They had seen the Savior, and the world would know.
The Glory That Returned
What happened in that field was more than spectacle. It was history colliding with fulfillment.
Centuries earlier, Israel had carried a tent through the wilderness. Inside that tent was a room without windows, a golden box called the Ark, and above that box, glory. Light. Heat. Presence.
The kind of holiness that made men fall flat and priests tremble. The kind that killed if approached wrongly. That glory dwelled at the center of the camp, so Israel would always know that God was with them.
But one day, the glory left.
Prophets wept. Priests despaired. The temple stood cold. And generations passed in silence.
Until now.
The glory of the Lord shone again, not over Jerusalem, but on a forgotten hill. The light had returned, but its resting place would not be an ark or a veil or a throne.
It would be a manger.
The glory of God placed itself in the feeding trough of animals. And only those with ears tuned to heaven could recognize it. They would not see glory in His face, not yet. But one day, those who believed would write, “We have seen His glory, the glory of the only begotten Son, full of grace and truth.”
The Savior We Cannot Do Without
The angel’s words were deliberate. “A Savior has been born to you.” He did not say teacher, or guide, or reformer.
Because we do not need instruction. We need rescue.
From the first cry of Adam’s rebellion, every child born into this world carries the weight of that fall. It’s in our thoughts. It’s in our appetites. It’s the shadow behind our pride and the rot beneath our kindness. We are not mistuned instruments. We are dead men walking.
And dead men cannot revive themselves.
You feel it in your bones. The ache. The fear of death that follows you through hospital hallways and lonely rooms. The sting of guilt after another angry word. The quiet dread that someday you’ll have to answer for all of it.
And you will.
Unless a Savior comes.
And He has.
Not from Adam’s line of failure. Not from dust, but from glory. Sent, not summoned. Given, not earned. Born into our ruin so He could carry us into life.
It is blood and breath. He came as a child so He could die as a man. He was laid in a manger so He could one day be laid in a tomb and walk out.
The Twin Pillars of Christmas
The angels said it plain: “Glory to God. Peace to men.”
This is the gospel. Two beams holding up the sky. The Father receives glory because the plan He made before the world was spun has now stepped into time. He sent His Son. He kept His promise. He made a way.
And peace is given to us. Not good feelings. Blood-wrought, cross-secured, heaven-declared peace.
You cannot climb to it. You cannot earn it. All peace begins in the heart of God and flows downhill, like water toward a dying world. It does not come from better behavior or clearer thinking or deeper understanding.
It comes through Christ.
The Field Is Calling
You know the story. Maybe you’ve known it for decades. You’ve sung it in carols and heard it in Christmas pageants. But stories do not save. Saviors do.
The shepherds did not hear and sit still. They ran. They left their posts. They let the fire burn out and chased the promise.
Have you?
Have you turned from everything else you trust and run with bare feet toward Christ? Have you heard the announcement and made haste?
He was born. For you.
He has come. To you.
And if you listen, really listen, you might still hear it…the echo of glory, the stillness of the field, and the quiet cry of a newborn King wrapped in cloth and lying in the straw.
Run to Him.
And let the world know what you have seen.
I’m Pastor Rich Bitterman, a country preacher from the Ozarks. Guy Howard, the old Walking Preacher, once wore out his boots traveling from church to church, meeting strangers and sharing the gospel. I’m doing the same today on digital roads. Each post is a visit. Each verse is a step. Let’s walk the Word together.