December 24, 2018
I want to take this opportunity to wish you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
I want to share with you a quote from President and Sister Watts from the Portland Oregon Temple. They quoted from Bruce A Van Orden and Brent L. Top from a 1990 Sperry Symposium on the New Testament entitled "The Lord of the Gospels". They were referring to the verse in Luke 2:8 which reads, "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night."
They said, "It is symbolic as well as literal that shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem were the first to be invited to witness the birth of the Lamb who would become the Good Shepherd.
"One of these verses is frequently misquoted: 'Keeping watch over their flocks by night.' But the verse does not say flocks (plural) but flock (singular). One scholar explained the significance: 'there was near Bethlehem, on the road to Jerusalem, a town known as Migdal Eder, or the watchtower of the flock. Here was the station where shepherds watched the flocks destined for sacrifice in the temple....It was a settled conviction among the Jews that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, and equally that he was to be revealed from Migdal Eder. The beautiful significance of the revelation of the infant Christ to the shepherds watching the flocks destined for sacrifice needs no comment.'"
President and Sister Watts then concluded with these remarks, "So much the promise means to us. And more. For there is promise yet to be fulfilled....
"The promised One will come again to cleanse, to bless, to claim his own. And you and I, who have forgotten what we saw when first He came, will see again. And sing again. And praise again---some caught up to meet him in the sky, others, bright-descending like a comet's tail from realms above. All in joy.
"Look forward, then, with hope, for He has promised."
May you and your loved ones always remember!
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