Championships are powerful crowd gathering, city-sweeping movements in the arena of sports. A professional sports team wins the big championship and life itself seems to stop for a time. The World Series, Super Bowl, World Cup, Stanley Cup, and NBA Finals. Ticker tape parades fill the streets. Some businesses close. Everywhere you look, people are wearing team colors, jerseys, and logos. The Rams’ win in last year’s Super Bowl even stirred up excitement right here in the Greater Conejo Valley!

We love a championship story. We love heroes. Even more, we love a good underdog story. The team that came from behind that no one expected to win pulled off the big upset.

Against all odds. When the stakes are high. The team, your team, pulls off something magical. Something you will talk about for the rest of your life.

That’s the story of the shepherds outside Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.

Luke records one of the most enduring, time-honored passages of Scripture. In Luke chapter 2, the Champion of champions—Jesus, was announced by angels to a rag-tag group of ordinary shepherds. Angels passed the baton of the Savior’s birth to the least qualified messengers.

Bible scholars believe Dr. Luke wrote his account of Christ’s life sometime around 60 A.D. Luke would have heard the story second or third hand. We picture the twilight years of a shepherd’s worn and weary eyes twinkling at the thought of those events so long ago. Imagine for a moment you were a fifteen-year-old shepherd taking the third shift. Decades later, a doctor approaches you to ask about the events of Jesus’ birth. You would not forget something so powerful as that one night.

Luke tells us the angels declared the baby born in Bethlehem that night a Savior, the Messiah, the Lord. They proclaimed that the one wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger would be a rescuer of His people. They declared that a champion had come. He was not just any hero or victor. He was indeed the Mighty God of whom Isaiah had prophesied. He had arrived for the shepherds, for their people. He had arrived for all people. For the shepherds who had taxes to pay, families to feed, and challenges of Roman rule to face, the prospect of someone who would champion their people was great news.

Jesus is our Champion too. Like the shepherds long ago who shared their champion with others, will you share the news of Jesus with someone today? From the angels to the shepherds to you, the message carries on today. Will you share the impact Jesus has had on your life with someone who needs hope?

Today: Ask God to show you someone who needs to hear your story of hope in your Champion, Jesus.