While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night C

While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night

Chuck Sligh

December 11, 2022

NOTE: A PowerPoint presentation for this message is available by emailing me at chucksligh@hotmail.com. Please request the title, “While Shepherds Watched.”

TEXT: Turn to Luke 2

INTRODUCTION

Don’t you just love kids at Christmas? [USE TWO OF THE JOKES BELOW.]

JOKE – One time a little boy was in a Christmas play and he had one assignment: To say at the right time, “I am the light of the world.” But when his time came, he totally forgot his line. His mother was on the front row and she whispered loudly, “Say, ‘I am the light of the world.” Suddenly, he brightened up and shouted, “My mom is the light of the world!”

JOKE – One time two young boys were spending the night at their grandparents’ house the week before Christmas. At bedtime, the two boys knelt beside their beds to say their prayers. The younger one began praying at the top of his lungs: “I PRAY FOR A NEW BICYCLE…AND A NEW PLAYSTATION…” and on he went like that. His older brother leaned over and said, “What are you shouting for? God’s not DEAF.” The little brother replied, “No, but GRANDMA is!”

JOKE – Kids also are notorious for mangling various aspects of the Christmas story. One nine-year-old schoolboy drew a picture showing three men offering gifts to Jesus in his manger—with a FIRE TRUCK outside the manger. Puzzled, His teacher asked him what the truck was doing in the picture. In his heavy East-Texas accent, he explained: “Well, the Bible says the wise men CAME FROM A-FAR.”

Kids—and moms and dads too—love the story of the shepherds in their fields that first Christmas morn found in Luke 2:8-20.

Picture yourself a simple, obscure shepherd, tending your flocks by night, doing your job on a cool Judean night with a few of your shepherd friends. This is what we see in verse 8 – “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night..”

There you are watching your sheep; talking with the other shepherds; probably telling jokes, laughing; maybe discussing the political situation in Judea—just doing what you’d been doing for the last several years. Then suddenly, an intense, bright light overcomes and overwhelms you. – Look at verse 9 – “And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.”

Along with this light appears an angel—and you are TERRIFIED! It’s not every day you see an angel. You don’t sit at the dinner table and say, “Hey, Hon, I saw an angel today.” This is a very special, unique experience that happens only to a select few in all history.

Terrified, shielding your face from the light, verses 10-12 say, “And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

Then unexpectedly, the heavens fill with a vast army of angels—an enormous, vast host shouts out glory and praise to God – verses 13-14 – “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

Then just as suddenly as the angels appeared, they all DISAPPEAR. It’s all dark again, just like before, and you turn to your shepherd friends and say, “Did you see THAT? That was AMAZING. We’ve got to check this out.”

So, you all decide to go see if you can find this baby the angels told you about – verse 15 – “And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.”

You go looking in Bethlehem—but Bethlehem is not a tiny little village, and it isn’t all that easy finding this baby the angels told you about. So you stop and ask someone, “Uh, you didn’t happen to see a heavenly host—you know—up in the sky, did you?”…“You didn’t. [ACT EMBARRASSED] Well, uh, never mind. Thanks a lot.”…“No, I haven’t been drinking.”

But finally, somehow guided by God, you and the other shepherds find the baby – verse 16 – “And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.”