“What a glorious wedding!”  I suspect those words have been spoken many times in history.  And those words have been spoken for many reasons.  Maybe it was a spectacular wedding venue, or church where the wedding took place.  Maybe the bride had an amazing dress.  Some of you here remember watching the wedding of Lady Diana to Prince Charles and the camera view from behind Diana as she walked down the aisle and the almost unbelievable train she had on her dress.  Maybe it was said about the food served at the reception or the dazzling, multi-tiered cake.

Two times in our Bible, we have the record of people who travel to see Jesus when he was just a child.  You all know the first time it happened!  It happened on the night Jesus was born.  Some shepherds came.  They were the “night shift.”  They had been out in the fields watching their sheep.  After the angels gave them the good news about Jesus’ birth, they hurried into Bethlehem to see the baby.  And this visit seems perfectly fitting. 

When I was growing up, my dad had some words of economic wisdom that he shared with my siblings and me. He would say, “You can spend a dollar once.” That’s a pretty good principle of fiscal responsibility. But the principle holds true not only with money.

Once again, our thoughts turn back to that first Christmas night, and to the starlit fields outside Bethlehem, and to those shepherds vigilantly watching over their sheep. If we could stand with those shepherds out in the Judean hill country under the moon and under the stars that night, what sort of conversations do you think we would hear?

We’ll begin tonight by reminding ourselves where our theme comes from this year.  We are meditating on verses in the Old Testament that contain the Hebrew word, “hin-nay.”  Hin-nay is word that would be roughly translated in English as “look” or in old English, “behold!”  We might say today, “Check this out!”