When I was a kid, we used to sing this Christmas Carol called “The First Noel”. Remember that
one? We sang it every Christmas, but to be completely honest with you, I had no earthly idea what a
“Noel” was! I always thought it was “Leon” spelled backwards, but come to think of it, that didn’t make
any sense either! Noel is actually a French word that has come to mean “Christmas”. But, it was
originally derived from a word meaning new birth. In the context of the old hymn, it means the very first
announcement of the “new birth” of the Christ Child was given to some poor and lowly shepherds, who
were keeping their flocks in the fields that were adjoining the tiny city of Bethlehem. Have you ever really
stopped to think that God, in His infinite wisdom, chose some poor and lowly shepherds to be the first to
know that The King of Kings and Lord of Lords had just made his entrance into this weary world? It
wasn’t the “rich or famous”, nor the “movers and shakers” that received “that first Noel”, but rather God
wanted a group of “social outcasts” to be told first that a Savior had come.