Daily Bible Reading 25th March 2026 // Luke 2:8-20
8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
But there is another way of solving the seeming incongruity of a helpless Babe being God's answer to the vastness of human need, and it is this: at the dawn of history, as soon as the darkness of sin fell upon mankind, and the crown of God's creation was vitiated, God gave the promise that 'the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent'. It was God promising that He would begin again, that there would be another Man, that His original purposes would come to pass for man, that man would come into his own as the overlord of creation, that he would achieve and realise his true destiny. And, when the fullness of the time was come, and when the Babe of Bethlehem was born, it was, to be sure, the weakness of God that was to prove stronger than men, but it was something more also - it was God's new man, the new humanity in which His destined purposes were to be fulfilled and realised. It was the planting of a new humanity in the world. And if this be so, we can hardly speak of the incongruity of the situation - not if this Babe is to be the re-institution of man, the re-investiture of man as overlord of creation. Bethlehem represents the incalculable power and potential of a new man. It is little wonder that His coming threw all Jerusalem into turmoil and drew the wisdom of the east to His infant feet! Here is God's Proper Man. Well might the prophet say, 'His name shall be called Wonderful…’ Creation coming back into its own, and coming to fruition and fulfilment - through a Man, the Man Christ Jesus, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, 'of the Father's love begotten'.