All who heard it wondered at the things which were spoken to them by the shepherds.
"All who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them." We will have little to say of those persons who merely wondered, and did nothing more. Many are amazed by the Gospel. They are content to hear it, pleased to hear it; if not in itself something new, yet there are new ways of putting it, and they are glad to be refreshed with the variety. The preacher's voice is to them as the sound of one that makes pleasant music with an instrument. They are glad to listen. They are not skeptics, they do not criticize, they raise no objections; they just say to themselves, "It is an admirable gospel, it is a wonderful plan of salvation. Here is the most astonishing love, most extraordinary condescension." Sometimes they marvel that these things should be told to them by shepherds; they can hardly understand how uneducated and ignorant men could speak of these things and how the shepherds could ever have learned such things. How is it that they seem so enthusiastic about them, what has happened to them that they are able to speak as they do. But after holding up their hands and opening their mouths for about nine days, the wonder subsides, and they go their way and think no more about it. 