John Koza

Dear Friends in Christ, 

Our Gospel for today is Luke 2: 15-21: 

“As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. “Let’s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.” They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.  

Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they’d been told!

When the eighth day arrived, the day of circumcision, the child was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived.”

This is Eugene Peterson’s translation found in The Message. I like to read different translations of scripture as sometimes just a different or comparative word can open a new optic to God’s word.

In this passage, I especially like the sentence, “Seeing was believing.” The shepherds (or sheepherders) were there! They saw and they believed!

And this reinforces what I came to believe this Advent season: that God saw to it that there is enough information in the scriptures regarding the birth of Jesus that we should have no doubts. It is clear. And we believe.

Today, there are many scholarly translations of the Bible available. If you have only one Bible, I encourage you to seek out a new one (or two). Here are just a few:

The New Testament, a Translation by David Bentley Hart; The Jewish Annotated New Testament by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler; and, The Message by Eugene Peterson.

And for Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible by Robert Alter and The Jewish Study Bible by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler.

In Christ, 

—John