Nothing quite says “Tis the Season” like your favorite Hallmark Christmas movie marathon! If you have never watched a Hallmark Christmas movie, then here are the essential ingredients:
• A small-town Christmas festival;
• Lots of Christmas decorations;
• PG level of romantic flirtation;
• Lots of snow!
• And an overworked woman who falls in love with a charming, handsome Christmas tree farmer
It’s been said that every Hallmark Christmas movie needs to feel like it could take place inside a snow globe. These things are enormously popular as nearly 70 million viewers watch the movies annually.
Kate is a 30-year old told from New Jersey who told her husband she wants to take dreamy Hallmark-themed vacations! It’s a feel-good time for almost everyone who watches the movies.
A husband or two may have questioned the plotline of the film by saying, “We all know how this movie is going to end, so why watch it?” And so many people watch it because all the movies end with a happy ending. We love happy endings! Yet, there are only so many Hallmark movies any man can take.
We want to peel the back onion to the real story of Christmas. Christmas is more than snow, tinsel trees, and romance under the mistletoe. What is the essence of Christmas? To discover the heart of Christmas, we are traveling back to the original stories of the first Christmas. We’re doing this little three-part series entitled The Characters of Christmas in order to see the magic of Christmas in the faces of those who first experience its warmth and joy. The story of Christmas has major characters and minor characters, who all play an important role in making the story of Christmas great theatre. To experience the fulness of Christmas, look at the faces and reactions of those who were first involved so many years ago. To prepare you for the upcoming Christmas season, I want to ask your minds and hearts to consider the Shepherds in the Christmas story. Interwoven in their story is the reason we experience so much joy around this time of year.
1. God Reaches Out
The shepherds were the first people to hear about Christ’s birth: “And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). The Messiah is finally here, and Heaven cannot wait another minute to get the word out. The Savior of the world is born, and who’s going to be the first people to know?
1.1 Who Are the First to Know?
Who are the first people you told when you had a baby? Family usually tell their family about the arrival of a new baby. Brand new parents usually tell their parents, now grandparents. In a day of social media, we still wait before announcing it to the world in order to tell our families first. “He’s here!” “She’s here!” Yet, here we have men who drop everything to chase after a baby. It’s the most unusual thing.
What do we make of the fact that these shepherds heard the news of Jesus’ birth first? We see a clue that will surprise us. We will be surprised as to who Jesus includes in His family. We have a clue that the Messiah’s family will not just be the religious insiders, but He will embrace those on the outside looking in.
1.2 The Shepherds
“And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8).
In verse 8, the Bible says the shepherds were “keeping watch over their flock.” The Bible is telling us that the shepherds were doing their job – they were shepherding! A shepherd would find grass and water for the sheep. He protected the sheep from wild animals as he gave them constant care. They would have rotated watch throughout the evening in order to guard against thieves and wild animals.
Take note that God didn’t first announce His Son’s birth to preachers, politicians, or the rich and the powerful. Instead, the angel came to ordinary, lunch-pail carrying shepherds. There’s white-collar, blue-collar, and then there is no collar. God chose to tell ordinary people – people who worked for a living.
Now, shepherding is one of the oldest occupations in our history that goes all the way back to Abel, who we are told was a shepherd (Genesis 4:2). Some of the greatest saints of the Old Testament were shepherds, including David, Joseph, and even Moses. Plus, the Bible often pictures God Himself as a shepherd as He cares for His people. Most importantly, Jesus refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd (John 10:11). Around the time of Jesus’ birth, shepherds began to be seen as crooks. People were forbidden to buy sheep, wool, and milk from a shepherd because they likely stole them. Shepherds were not allowed to give testimony in the courts of law at the time. They really had a bad reputation at the time. These shepherds may have been devout men, but they came from a despised class. They were at the bottom of the scale of power and privilege.
The first people to hear about the birth of Jesus were NOT the people in the Oval office but people who had no office. God did NOT bring the news to the Temple, the priests, and the religious insiders. Instead, God ensured that the first people to hear the message of the good news were the religious outsiders.
Take note of four features of the scene before us when they first learned of the Messiah’s birth.
1.3 The Glory of the Lord
“And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear” (Luke 2:10).
Highlight and note the phrase “the glory of the Lord” in verse 10. God’s glory normally was displayed at the Temple, but here we see the glory of God on a farm! During Solomon’s day, the glory of the Lord was at the Temple. Yet, God moved this display of His glory like a food truck moves the food from the restaurant to you. Now, it’s a really rare thing to witness the glory of the Lord. Halley’s Comet comes by once every 75 years, but the glory of the Lord is much more incredibly rare. Perhaps only a couple of thousand people have witnessed God’s glory up close and at hand throughout history. Again, it’s an incredibly rare thing. Out of nowhere, the Shepherds receive this incredible gift of seeing the glory of the Lord. Normally, we think of the religious insiders getting the privilege of witnessing God’s glory. His glory has gone mobile, so now outsiders can receive the grace of God.
1.4 All Around Them
Note the wording carefully in the middle of verse 10: “and the glory of the Lord shone around them…” God’s glory wasn’t just in front of them or above them, but it was around them. It was like a movie theater with surround sound speakers. They had never seen anything like it. God is reaching out! Not only is the glory of the Lord out in a field among the common people, but now it’s all around them.
1.5 The Angels Tell the Shepherds
Again, the shepherds see three items, and here’s the one they hear: an angelic voice says, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). Don’t think for a minute that you wouldn’t be afraid as well. You may have witnessed a rocket lift off into outer space in your life, and some may have even witnessed a nuclear bombs drop in the desert somewhere, but nothing can prepare you for what these angels saw. In the days before electricity, nothing would cause this kind of light this late at night. Even in the days after electricity, nothing would cause this kind of light this late at night. The brilliant bright light shined so brightly that the shepherds were afraid - greatly afraid (verse 9).
1.6 Angelic Army Appears
Here’s the fourth feature that jumps out at us in the scene before us: “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God…” (Luke 2:13a). Note carefully that one solitary angel showed up first – but this one and one only who showed up at first. But no sooner is the announcement made by one angel than all of a sudden, and out of nowhere, a heavenly choir appears. The word “host” literally means army in verse 13. Here was an angelic army announcing peace to those on earth. God must have flooded that field that night was angels as far as the eye could see. Luke records their song for us: ““Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased” (Luke 2:14)! Can you hear their voices come together? Like standing on the tarmac of the airport with planes flying all around you, the sound of this angel army would have overwhelmed you. They had never heard anything so loud and so beautiful before.
So what? What does this mean to me now?
1.7 Jesus Redefines Family
The first people to hear the news were the despised and the outcast. The news of Jesus’ birth didn’t make it to His grandparents. Mary’s parents were not the first to hear the news, but these despised shepherds were.
This means that Jesus redefines His family. The gospel and Jesus are so radical and revolutionary. Jesus’ family are not the people you expect. Jesus was sent to scoop up people who no one thought would be inside of God’s spiritual, forever family. You see confirmation of this in the angels’ song verse 10: “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). Remember now, the news of Jesus’ birth didn’t first come to His biological family but made its way to His spiritual family.
1.7.1 Verse 14 KJV
Look at verse 14: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased” (Luke 2:14)! The old translations are wrong here as they were based on inaccurate manuscripts. Every Christmas carol says, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” That’s the traditional older King James rendering. But there’s almost a universal consensus on the part of scholars that the King James Bible at that point was basing its translation on a Greek text that wasn’t the most accurate and wasn’t really true to the original.
Instead, the angels say, “peace among those with whom he is pleased.”
1.7.2 Hark the Herald Angels Sing
You know the famous carol, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”? Charles Wesley wrote that hymn that we still sing today.
He said,
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!
Wesley saw the message the angels sang to the shepherds. He sees the reason the Son of God came to earth. That’s the reason why Charles Wesley put it so beautifully.
God’s grace rests on those who embrace His Son by faith. God makes peace through the cross of His Son. The only people who get the peace are people who grasp God’s grace.
You’re here today, and maybe you realize you have attempted to assert your independence from God. We have all done that. Yet, God is reaching out to you; He’s reaching way out to you. You see this all over the Bible at the time of Jesus’ birth. You see it with the Wise Men. God wanted pagan sorcerers to be among the first to worship Jesus at His birth. So God makes His point by commanding the constellations to bring them there (Matthew 2:1-18). God is reaching out to you who are far away from Him even now. The Christian says, “I need to be saved by grace because even my best deeds were done for bad reasons. I need to be saved by grace. I need the cross of Christ.”
1.7.3 My Spiritual Family
The gospel and Jesus are so radical and revolutionary. Jesus’ family are not the people you expect. And the message going to the shepherds is a foretaste of what’s to come in Jesus’ life. The Gospel of John says it this way: “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:11-13).
When Jesus arrived, nobodies were in a moment transformed into somebodies. And it’s your faith that puts you in His family. Your spiritual family lasts forever and ever. The early Christians saw themselves as a family; they even called one another “brother” and “sister.” They weren’t a blood family, but they were eternal family. Your faith family is your forever family, and faith is thicker than blood. Your new spiritual family is forming around Jesus and the gospel even at His birth. So no matter what kind of family you’ve had in the past, you now have a new family. You have new brothers and sisters in the gospel. Among the brothers and sisters you have is the Shepherds. Part of the reason for our seasonal joy is that message of the gospel first came to outcasts, a despised group of people. And a new family begins to emerge.
1. God Reaches Out
2. So The Shepherds Are Sent Out
Let’s circle back to these shepherds again: “When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.’ And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger” (Luke 2:15-16).
They didn’t waste any time – “And they went with haste.” I love the fact that these men dropped everything in order to see a baby. Have you ever dropped everything to go see a baby? Do you know how rare that kind of thing is for a man? A woman says, “We’ve got to go see so and so’s baby?” Invariably the husband says, “What’s the big deal? If you’ve seen one baby, you’ve seen them all.” Yet, these shepherds drop everything to see the baby. When men drop everything to see the child, you know the child is special.
2.1 Sacrificial Sheep
The Mishnah ruled that any animal found between Jerusalem and a spot near Bethlehem would be presumed to be a sacrifice in the Temple. It’s likely that the sheep in the pasture that evening would make their way to the temple. The very sheep in the field that night had a high probability of being sacrificed in the Temple. Now, I am not saying these sheep in this field were absolutely on their way to the Temple. I am saying that some historical experts in Jewish law draw a tight connection between the sheep in this field and their eventual use as a sacrifice in the Temple.
2.2 Jesus the Lamb
Why does that matter? Years pass by, and Jesus is now grown. His cousin and prophet, John the Baptist, says this about Jesus: “The next day [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’” (John 1:29)! What does this mean? What’s the connection between these shepherds and Jesus’ being called a lamb?
2.2.1 Passover
Centuries before this, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, and Moses went to Pharaoh and said, “Let my people go.” Moses went after him, and Pharaoh wouldn’t give them up. Finally, God sent plagues, and finally, God says, “I’m going to finally send a plague on Egypt because of their oppression, injustice, and rebellion. I’m going to bring that plague on them, and when that happens, they’re going to let you go. I’m going to send my angel of death, and the angel of death will slay the firstborn son in every home.” Now, in old patriarchal societies, everyone’s hopes in the family were tied to the oldest son in the family. So this was a way of striking at the very hopes of every family. It was a terrible judgment. God says in effect, “Because of their rebellion and oppression, and because they’re not letting you go, I’m going to judge them. I’m going to send my angel of death.” But then God says to the Israelites, “Don’t forget this. Sin is a debt, and you’re sinners too. And when the angel of death comes, the only way you are going to have your firstborn saved is if you kill a lamb and sprinkle the blood on the doorpost. Then the angel of death will pass over you, and you will not be slain for your sins.” That’s the beginning of the Passover. Year after year, a lamb was slain to commemorate the Passover, the night in which the Israelites did not pay for their sins.
Suddenly the Holy Spirit gives John the Baptist a revelation. And John says in effect, “I get it. Behold! I get it! It wasn’t little animals that died for our sins. This is the Lamb of God. This is God’s Son. The reason why our firstborn did not die that night was because God is offering up his firstborn. He’s coming, and He’s taking the sins of the world. The sheep in that field may have very well made their way to be sacrificed. While we cannot be sure of that, we can be sure of this. The child in the manger did grow up to be sacrificed. He grew up to teach, heal, and to die on a cross. What brings people so much joy during Christmas? It’s grace. The shepherds knew they weren’t the first people usually invited to such things.
2.2.2 Shepherds Holding the Child
Some of the first people to handle and hold Jesus were Shepherds who handled the sheep that were to be slaughtered for Passover. They knew how to care for a lamb. And these shepherds knew intuitively the fate of the sheep they cared for. They knew their sheep were destined to be slain. It was intentional that God sent for shepherds to first see the Good Shepherd. God is tipping His hand even in the birth of the Son of God. It’s shepherds who first see the One who will be called “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”
2.3 Seeing the Child
“And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them” (Luke 2:20).
If you were to follow the shepherds in Bethlehem to see the Christ child… … you will find no flaming sword that obstructs your entrance to see the Child as you might find in some fable or myth. You need no ticket of admission to get in the door. You will find that there is no special favor shown to rank or title. Anyone may go in to see this Child born in the humblest place where an infant has ever been. You will find no visible crown of light encircling around the child.
What you will find when you come to Bethlehem is this: the Infinite has become the finite, and the Almighty has become weak. The One who upholds all things by the word of his power willingly became helpless; And the One who spoke all worlds into existence willingly became a speechless child. Those little hands will one day grasp the scepter of a universal empire. Those little arms will one day grapple with the monster called “Death” and destroy it. Those little feet shall tread on the serpent’s neck and crush that old deceiver’s head. Yes, and that little tongue, which has not yet learned to articulate a word in Bethlehem’s manger, shall one day pour from Him a stream of eloquence the likes of which no man has ever heard. That tongue will fertilize the minds of the whole human race and infuse His teaching into the literature of the world. And one day, that tongue shall pronounce the judgments of heaven on the destiny of all mankind.
Conclusion
Have you trusted Jesus Christ to be your Savior?
