The Shepherds’ Christmas
Luke 2:8-20 (NIV)
8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
Perhaps you have not noticed this but shepherds were a big part of the Christmas story. They are not just some extras in the “movie” of Christmas. They are not like the unnamed disposable stormtroopers of an evil empire in a Star Wars movie, who appear and disappear as the hero, Luke Skywalker vaporized them with his trusty light-sabre. Luke 2:8-20 tells us the shepherds were taking the starring role. They were involved in all the speaking parts! They are like King Kong in the King Kong movie (bad analogy – don’t think King Kong had a speaking part – just grunts and roars). So let’s take some time today and examine with me the shepherds’ Christmas. Have you considered how they might have felt when they heard of the Christ child being born? What were they thinking? Snowflakes falling, not likely! I wonder how that night would alter their lives as the angels appeared to them?
I invite you to use some imagination and think with me, go back in time to that first Christmas day … think time travel and put yourself into the shoes of the shepherds who were keeping watch over their flocks at night. … What if I were a shepherd. … I would be part of a despised group.
Why am I despised? Shepherds, you see, they have a bad reputation. We are not superheroes, who would save one sheep at the expense of ninety nine others. No, we would save 99 over one! If one sheep is missing, it is already more than likely served as ‘dimsum” in a wolf’s TV dinner.
If I were a shepherd… I would be rough, unshaven, unfashionable, bad haircut or no haircut, not GQ material for sure! No business suits for me! I would be uneducated, low-skilled, in the company of questionable folks who are probably foul-mouthed, tell dirty jokes, who typically keep long hours at work (bad shift work), you know like keeping watch over the flock by night) . Which means, I am not a church-going type of guy. If I do go to church, I would miss church service on a regular basis, because of the lousy hours. Most decent folk would think I would challenge core family values. Decent folk would avoid me!
I would likely have a mean streak. Gotta kill carnivores who would want the sheep for food. Or do violent things to rustlers/robbers who would steal my sheep. My boss more than likely does not trust me fully, because they keep losing one sheep here and one sheep there. It sure gets me mad when the boss docks my pay! But can I help it, if the sheep is stupid??? Probably, he think I am busy playing cards with my buddies or lazy sleeping on the job because it’s a boring job, it’s like watching grass grow. And when I do watch the grass grow, they get eaten up by the sheep!
I am consumed by searching for grass and water in a dry and stony and sometimes really hot and hostile climate. Sometimes I have to travel far from human civilization, far from cities, just to get those sheep food and shelter from the climate. So I have to sleep outside, in tents. Maybe if I have time, I would catch some sleep here and there, get some badly needed rest in the midst of noisy bleating sheep. And you think camping is fun, try doing it all your life! Got no bed, got no good scientifically proven hiking shoes because Nikes were not invented yet. Then stepping on sheep droppings, yuck! Furthermore, I got no sun screen (but I got a tan to die for), no hot showers, no deodorant stick for my underarms, bad body odor, got no MP3 player to keep me occupied when the days get really long… So if you see me, a little out of touch with hygiene, grouchy and a little stressed, weary, it’s not because the wife was mean to me. You just be glad to have a wife and a bed to go home to! All I have is smelly sheep 24/7 who don’t care about me!
But I do think we’re honorable people... at least our profession is totally legal and we’re not into grow-ops. We do good things for the religious community such as providing lots of animals for sacrifice at the temple.
Given our reputation, one crazy night, something really awesome happened. It was out of this world - an angel of the Lord appeared to us, a group of shepherds (v.9). I’m not crazy, it really happened, just as the Bible recorded it;
9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified
Now, that is really something! Why would an angel appear to us? Unless, that angel is the angel of death coming with bad news to tell me and my pals that our time on earth is numbered. Oh no, our bad reputation has finally caught up to us. The angel will smite us, with a blazing sword, like that sword from crouching tiger, hidden dragon! No way we will live through this as the glory of God shone on us! We were scared spitless. Totally terrified, afraid for our lives. I am gonna die! Our hairs were standing up straight, we could not move, we were at the mercy of the angel of the Lord. You might laugh at us, and say “cowards” but how would you feel if some supernatural being comes at the dead of night and sneaks up on you and you feel like you’re gonna be eaten alive by a vampire or be shot dead by a firing squad!
But wait look, just as the Bible says in v.10!
The angel said this; "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ[a] the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
God is not going to wipe me and my pals out! Whew! I thought I bought the farm for sure. It sure gave me jolt that I will never forget when I heard, to my surprise “Do not be afraid!”.
Why should I not be afraid? The angel said there is good news of great joy! Instead of planning for my funeral, there is celebration of a new life born in the town of David! In Bethlehem, a Savior, the long awaited Messiah, the chosen one, the deliverer in the mold of Jewish superhero, Moses, is born. I thought I will meet the Terminator, instead what I got was a Savior!
Then we shepherds witnessed another remarkable sight. There was a band of angels praising God. I am not kidding you. These angels showed up, saying things that were out of this world. Just as it is written in the Bible;
13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
Whoa, God brings peace to people. The Lord of the universe is speaking to me, a dirty smelly shepherd??? And it is not about wiping me off the face of the earth. Wow! It sure sounds good! It is Good News!
The angel also said, the child who’ll be Messiah would be lying in a manger. A manger? That can’t be true. That’s like a dish, a serving plate for my animals. The picture must be fuzzy here. Change the channel. Maybe we were sleepy, After all, the angel did appear at night when most people are asleep. We had to check it out. This is exciting stuff! What if it was some weird mass hallucination, because we ate some bad takeout food at the roadside deli? Good thing it was Bethlehem, just a small rural backwater town, not in some bustling metropolis like Vancouver. How many stables would there be in a city like Vancouver? Like a kazillion! Good thing this happened in this village. There could not be too many of them for us to check out the story. Look at the record (v.15-16)
15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.
So we went over to Bethlehem, to check things out. And after a while of looking around, we finally found Mary and Joe and the baby wrapped in the common cloths of the day. Let me tell you, it sure was not a silent night. The baby was crying, the animals were making a racket, as we shepherds came in like fools drunk on wine, delirious, excited, as if the Canucks just won the Stanley Cup.
It was fantastic, it was really true! What the angel said was not some silly dream. We were wide awake, watching the flocks when all these things occurred, so it is not some weird baseless UFO story! We witnessed it. We were there, experiencing the whole thing as if it were in slow motion. So we started telling everyone we came across about all that occurred. Lots of people were amazed at what we told them. We went back to the stable and a worship and praise party broke out. Yup, it was not a silent night.
That night changed things for the world. That night is burned and etched into my memory. That night God included me into His kingdom. He came to me! He came with the Good News and I felt I was no longer a piece of meat in this world, like a piece of char-siew (Chinese BBQ pork) to be consumed by others. That night I felt God noticed me and called me and settled my fears. That holy night I partied as I never had partied before, glorifying and praising God for all I heard and seen. Just as the Bible recorded it…
17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
Come back now to our time… Well, I am glad that God chose to reveal the birth of the Messiah to a group like the Shepherds. That it happened this way was a big surprise. The voice of prophecy had stopped for approximately 400 years. These were the dark times known by scholars as the intertestamental period or referred to by others as the “silent years.” Much political upheaval, oppression by invading forces, downturn in the economy, much unrest! That God spoke again out of nowhere in the darkness and then to shepherds surely, not the classiest of people nor religious, is like rain after a long hot dry season.
God came to the shepherds and revealed the birth of Christ to them. Surely God should have revealed Himself at the country club in some fancy big name city, with better parents than a struggling young couple. That’s the truth of Christmas… God came, close enough to be touched, and held and showed Himself in the form of a frail, vulnerable babe to the lowly, the ordinary, despised, struggling, sinful folks like the shepherds, people such as you and I. This babe named Jesus would show God to be close by, as near as my breath. In Christ, we see God loving, embracing, unconditional in His love, compassionate and so strong as He took the blows and the suffering of the cross for the sins of the world and announce there is forgiveness of sins for all who believe!
Did you know that the name Jesus means God is salvation? God has come to sinners such as the Shepherds, the underprivileged, the no-names, the lowly! He did not come as a celebrity, nor demand celebrity treatment, God came in a diaper, how demeaning! When the Messiah entered the world, all He got was dirty shepherds and animals and probably two wide-eyed tired out young people called Mary and Joseph who are not feeling like the top of the world. God came wrapped up in common cloths, frail and weak as a baby, that could be snuffed out, in order to tell us we are not washed up, finished, rejects, fit to be tied up like yesterdays newspapers bound up for recycling or the dump. Somehow God thought we were precious enough to Him to invest His life, to squeeze His majestic holiness into a flesh-bound little human baby body. God did not come with terror or an invading army to force us to convert to Christianity at gunpoint. God did not come to blow away the universe or demand His way of the highway. God came close, close enough to be hugged by Mary and Joseph, close enough to be seen by the shepherds to clearly demonstrate that God is with us! This tells me, God will not refuse you, if you would place your trust in Him. God will not refuse you, though your sins may be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as wool. God is salvation, He has come to save His people from their sins.
Perhaps today is the day you first heard there is such good news. Take this news with you and store it away in your hearts, ponder it like Mary did (v.19). Don’t let it get away from you. Treasure it, let in renew hope again in your sin-scarred life. Where loneliness, despair, devastation, desperation has made an appearance in your life, remember God has entered that world as one of us who bleed real blood and understands! And when the message to the shepherds sink in deeper… respond then with all your heart to God. Break out in praise! Bring out the Christmas gifts, for God has given us a Savior, so we give out of worship to God, to tell others God’s favor and peace in on us!
Or perhaps you are thinking this “so much brokeness, so much sin in my life, surely God will no longer have mercy on me.” Good news once again – if the shepherds were blessed by God and they rejoiced, what then would stop God from blessing you? Even though their human reputation is a total washout, God revealed Messiah to them of all the groups of people in the world! Respond then to Him! Ask in prayer to God to accept you as you really are. The message of “do not be afraid” is for you!
Perhaps you need to go to Bethlehem just as the shepherds did and check out this rather fantastic story. Could it be true, that the Messiah is Jesus? Feel free to check the whole thing out. Don’t let this message be crowded out by jingle bells and the sounds of commercialism and let it just be another bah humbug holiday.
Messiah has come and He came with a specific purpose – for you and I to draw near to God by a gift… the baby that was born to in the most humble of circumstances, revealed to a bunch of nobodies. Isn’t it a thrill, to know that the best thing about Christmas is – that when God initiated a rather ridiculous plan to save the world, His plan included dirty shepherds, living in a dirty world? Does it not give you and I lots of hope, lots of peace, to know God’s favor is on us this day? Does it not change our view of God to know His will is give us and to bless us with the best Christmas gift ever, i.e. Himself? Will you let Christ, Messiah, Savior, God with us, be the chief reason you celebrate this Christmas? So I say, let every heart prepare Him room, joy to the world!
