Why Outcasts Find Jesus

A shepherd was looking after his sheep one day on the side of a deserted road when suddenly a brand-new Porsche screeched to a halt.

The driver stepped out wearing an Armani suit, Rockport shoes, Oakley sunglasses, a Rolex watch, and a Versace tie.

He looked at the shepherd and said, “If I can tell you how many sheep you have, will you give me one of them?”

The shepherd looked at the man, then at the flock grazing on the hillside, and replied, “Okay.”

The man opened his laptop, connected to his phone, accessed satellite imagery, ran spreadsheets, databases, and calculations, and finally printed out a thick report on a portable printer.

Then he said confidently, “You have exactly 1,586 sheep.”

The shepherd nodded. “That’s right. You can have one.”

The man loaded the animal into the back of his Porsche and prepared to leave.

As he did, the shepherd called out, “If I can guess your profession, will you give me my animal back?”

“Sure,” the man replied.

“You’re an IT consultant,” the shepherd said.

The man was stunned. “How did you know?”

The shepherd answered, “First, you came without being called. Second, you charged me to tell me something I already knew. And third, you don’t understand anything about my business.”

Then he paused and added, “Now can I have my dog back?”

(Let that sit.)

That joke works because it exposes something deeper: the gap between appearance and understanding, between confidence and wisdom.

And it prepares us for an unlikely group of people in Luke’s Christmas story—people almost everyone else misunderstood: the shepherds.

When Luke tells the story of Jesus’ birth, he introduces a very curious cast of characters. God does not send angels to the mayor of Bethlehem. He does not appear to the religious elite in Jerusalem. He does not go to King Herod’s palace.

One might expect that with all those angels lighting up the sky, at least one would stop by Herod’s residence and announce, “Your reign is over. A new King has been born.”

That never happens.

Instead, God sends heaven’s announcement to shepherds—smelly, dirty, sleep-deprived men living on the margins of society. Outcasts. Misfits. People no one else thought important enough to include.

Luke writes, “And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8).

That single phrase tells us far more than it first appears. Shepherds were not just socially overlooked; they were religiously excluded. The nature of their work made them ceremonially unclean. Their constant contact with animals, blood, and the outdoors meant they could not regularly participate in synagogue worship or temple rituals.

To become clean again required a lengthy purification process—one that took time they did not have.

Even worse, the priests and temple assistants could not touch them. Doing so would make the priests themselves unclean. Shepherds were necessary, but they were not welcome. Needed, but avoided. Useful, but shunned.

There is a deep irony here. The shepherds provided the sheep for the temple sacrifices. On the high holy days, the priests depended on shepherds to supply the lambs required for worship. Yet the very men who made worship possible were kept at a distance from it.

Necessary, but rejected. Central, yet excluded.

In first-century Israel, shepherds were also considered untrustworthy. Many were accused—rightly or wrongly—of theft. When shepherds were nearby, people guarded their belongings. Shepherds were assumed to be dishonest, rough, unreliable. Their testimony was not even admissible in court.

And yet, it is to these men that God entrusts the first public announcement of the Savior’s birth.

Why?

Why shepherds?

The Bible is filled with shepherds. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David—some of Israel’s greatest figures had once kept sheep.

By the first century, society had grown “sophisticated.” The very profession once associated with patriarchs was now looked down upon. What had once been noble was now despised.

God deliberately bypasses the powerful and the polished to speak to the people everyone else ignored. God sends angels to outcasts.

These shepherds were likely responsible for the lambs used in temple sacrifice—animals without blemish, carefully raised for holy purposes. Special men, perhaps, but still misfits. Still outsiders.

And as we listen to their story, it becomes difficult not to recognize ourselves.

Because if we are honest, we are all misfits in one way or another.

Some more visibly than others, but all of us know the ache of not fully belonging. All of us have felt the sting of exclusion—whether because of sin, shame, failure, circumstance, or the quiet realization that we do not measure up.

Some carry the pain of addiction.

Some carry the wounds of abuse.

Some bear the burden of poverty or prejudice.

Some are haunted by mistakes that never seem to loosen their grip.