. (1) Preparing for large Christmas Eve family gathering, a mother had been giving out orders like a drill sergeant: "Pick up your things! Don’t get your clothes dirty! Put away those toys." Well, her 4-year-old daughter had been underfoot all day, so she sent her to the next room to play with their wooden Nativity set. As the mother scurried around setting the table she overheard her daughter talking to her toys in the same tone of voice the mother had used: "I don’t care who you are, get those camels out of my living room!". It makes me wonder sometimes just how
we approach Christmas.
As we quickly approach Christmas this year, I continue to ask the "What if?" questions. Two weeks ago I asked you "What if God spoke to you the way He did Mary?" Then last week I asked you "What if God gave you a mission like He did the wisemen?". Today I shift to the Shepherds. "What if God gave you a witness like He did the Shepherds?"
Out in the field, minding their own business; tending the sheep and wham, just like that an "angel of the Lord" interrupts their peaceful night; and the glory of the Lord shines around them, and the most wonderful message of all time is deliverered "to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord"... and then a multitude of angels
saying "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among whom he favors"!
If this had been all they had witnessed, it would seem great enough! But they made their way into town, and found the child, just as it had been told them, a child lying in a manger with Mary and Joseph. And this great event that they saw; they were witnesses to the birth of the Messiah; the Son of God. What if God gave you a witness like He did the Shepherd’s, what would
be your response? The Shepherds responded to the message in several ways:
A) First, it was something that they experainced for themselves! They not only heard the message proclaimed, but they went in haste to investigate it, and experiance it for themselves. It was something that could not be contained and "they made know
what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed".
When I was a little boy, I remember that at revivals they would open up the floor to anyone who wanted to give a "testimony". Then people would get up
and testify about what God had done in their life. If the Shepherds didn’t go and testify; give their eye witness testimonial; then what good would it
have been for them to witness the great event. In the 16th Chapter of Mark, Mary Magdalene and the other women saw that the stone had been rolled from
the tomb, and the angel told them "that Jesus had been raised. He is not here. He has risen". and yet verse 16:8 tells thet the women "said nothing to anyone because they were afraid". What good is it to witness a great moving of God, if you do not share it with others?
B) The second thing I note about the Shepherd’s witness is that: status doesn’t matter!
The solo I sang in the Community Choir last Sunday Night was entitled "A Strange Way", and has Joseph asking the question "Why me, with all the rulers in the world?", "why would God pick such a simple man of trade". There was King Herod, or the High Priest, Roman
Centurion’s, and the list could go on, but God chose a group of Shepherds, which among Jewish culture was a lowly position. Smelly! Long days and nights! A more nomadic lifestyle, and yet when it came to status to witness the birth of the Son of God, status doesn’t matter.
It is not to say that God can’t use Doctors and layers, and people of importance. God can and will use those people. But God will also use, and so often did in the stories we read in Scripture; the least; the last... simple ordinary people like you and me to witness the greatness of God.
illustraition: When Max Lucado was working as a roustabout with an old man named Ben. When they were finally chosen, Ben said "It sure feels good to be
chosen, boy"... "it sure does Ben, it sure does".
C) Three, the Shepherd’s just "Can’t keep quiet!" And neither should we! We have a witness, that jesus Christ has not only been born, but He has been
born a new in our hearts and lives.
In a story told by George Dempster, (2) "The Thames, flowing through London, was at low tide, causing the freighter to be anchored a distance from shore.
The long plank, which led from the ship across the mud flats to the bank, suddenly began to jiggle precariously. The smallish man who was carefully
pushing his barrow across the plank from the freighter to the shore lost his balance and found himself tumbling into the muddy waters. A roar of laughter
erupted from the dockers and from the tall worker on board ship, who had jiggled the plank. The muddied man’s instinctive reaction was anger. The
fall was painful; he was dripping wet and knee deep in muck. "This is your opportunity," a voice whispered in his heart.
The victim, unknown to his tormenters, was a clergyman disguised as a docker in hopes of getting to know how the dockers felt, lived and struggled.
Perhaps as he gained their confidence and made friends, he could tell them of the love of the Savior, who died to give them new life and hope and joy.
George Dempster came up laughing. A docker made his way to where Dempster had been dislodged, dropped some
empty boxes into the slush and jumped down to help him out. "You took that all right," he said as he helped Dempster clamber back to the boxes he had
dropped. His accent was not that of a cockney. He was no ordinary docker.
Dempster told the story of this unusual docker in Finding Men for Christ. He recounted the ensuing events: "Did I? Well, what’s the use of being otherwise?" I replied and followed this by a challenge. "You haven’t been at this game long." "Neither have you," he retorted. "No! And I shan’t be at it much longer if I can help it.
Tell me your yarn, and I’ll tell you mine."
I was watching his face as well as I could with my eyes still half full of mud. He was trying to scrape some of the slime from me and meanwhile
becoming almost as filthy as I was. We agreed to exchange yarns. I therefore proposed that we should adjourn to a coffee shop nearby and over a
warm drink exchange the story of our experiences, and how we came to be "down under" life’s circumstances. Along we journeyed through Wapping High
Street, up Nightingale Lane to London Docks and so "To where I dossed (slept). When we reached the Alley and I indicated the door he said, "Do they let beds here?" "Well," I replied, "I sleep here, come in and see."
"Oh! I’ve often passed this place but did not know they put men up here." We entered and I instructed that a cup of coffee and something be brought for
my friend, while I disappeared without explaining to anybody exactly how I came to be so inelegantly decorated. Mud baths had not yet become a
prescribed treatment for certain human ailments, but never could such a remedy, however well prepared or appropriately prescribed, prove so effectual as this one. It had been involuntarily taken it is true, but for like results who would not undertake even such drastic treatment daily? "His ways are higher than our ways." His permissions are all for somebody’s good,
and in this instance the reason for His permission was not long unrevealed. A hurried bath soon put me right. After donning my usual attire, while seeking Divine guidance I hastened to return.
"Here we are, now for our yarns," I began. He was staring in amazement and was for a few moments lost for reply. "This is your yarn, is it? What do you
do this for?" The first part of his question needed no reply, but I did not hesitate to answer the second. "To find you."
"To find you", that is why Jesus came with such a lowly begining, a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. All to find you. It was this that the Shepherds witness and proclaimed, and it remains our witness to tell others about the birth of the Savior.
(1) www.sermoncentral.com (Jeff Strite) "Christmas Season Humor"
(2) George Dempster, Finding Men for Christ ,London: Hodder & Stroughton, 1935, quoted by Ruth Bell Graham, Prodigals and Those Who Love Them, 1991, Focus on the Family Publishing, Page 85-94.
