When you look
at the Christmas story, you can’t help but notice how many of the people in it
were ordinary people. They were people
like you and me, going through their lives one day at a time, doing nothing
particularly remarkable. Then, all of a
sudden, God called on these ordinary people and asked them to do some
extraordinary things. Today, on the day
we celebrate the birth of the Savior, we’re going to take a look at the
shepherds and their role in the Christmas story.
If you want to get an idea of who
the shepherds were, think of some of the cowboys who were in this country in
the first part of the twentieth century.
I don’t mean the Hollywood version of cowboys, I mean the real thing. I’ve had the privilege of getting to know a
few people who, when they were young, were involved in some of that, and some
of you have, too. They have quite the
stories to tell.
Contradicting what Hollywood says,
it was not a glamorous life. It was a
very hard life. You were out in the
elements constantly, no matter what those elements were. In the summer, it was high heat and
humidity. In the winter, it was bitter
cold and snowstorms. There was
everything in-between as well. You found
shelter whenever and wherever you could.
You did not get paid very much.
You were kind of looked down on by the higher-ups in society. It was not the kind of life very many people
actually aspired to live.
That’s pretty much who the
shepherds were, back in Jesus’ time.
They were better than the beggars—at least they were working for a
living—but they were pretty much on the bottom rung of that part of society
that was employed. Those are the people
to whom God chose to send an angel.
Those are the people God chose to be the first ones to know about the
birth of the Savior.
I’m sure that, on that first
Christmas night, the last thing these shepherds expected was that they’d see an
angel. I don’t doubt they believed in
angels. Angels show up quite a few times
in the Old Testament, and they’d have heard all those stories. The thing is, though, that these shepherds
knew they were considered low-class people.
They might have believed that angels could appear to people, but if they
ever thought about it, they probably thought they were the last people on earth
God would send angel to.
Then, as they’re doing their jobs
one night, there’s an angel in their midst.
We don’t know if this was Gabriel again, the one who appeared to Mary
and Joseph. The Bible just says it was
an angel. But just as every other time
an angel appears in the Christmas story, the shepherds are terrified. The angel tells them not to be afraid. Then the angel says those words that many of
have heard so often, the words we hear every time we watch the Charlie Brown
Christmas show. “I bring you good news
of great joy that will be for all the people.
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the
Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign
to you: You will find a baby wrapped in
cloths and lying in a manger.
“Suddenly a great company of the
heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God
in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.’”
And that’s it. That’s all the Bible says about the angels
coming to the shepherds. Do you think it
really happened exactly that way? I
mean, I’m not saying the Bible is wrong or anything, but think about it. If you read the words the angel said, it
takes about thirty seconds. If you allow
some time for the appearance and disappearance of the angel and the heavenly
host, it takes about a minute.
Was that really it? Did the angel say some more stuff that’s not
recorded? Did the heavenly host have
more to say, too? Or did this all really
just take a minute or less? Did the
angel and the heavenly host just pop in, say their bits, and leave?
If so, try to imagine how you’d
feel if you were those shepherds. You’d
think you’d been seeing things. You’d
wonder if you’d fallen asleep and dreamed that.
You’d be hesitant to even say anything to the others. You’d be afraid they might think you’d gone
nuts if you even started talking about seeing an angel, much less a heavenly
host.
You look around at the others, and
you notice everyone else kind of doing the same thing. They all have strange looks on their
faces. Finally, someone says, “Hey, did
you guys see something?”
You go, “Well, uh, maybe. What kind of something?”
“Well, I don’t know, just sort of like,
well, a person, kind of, but not exactly.
It was sort of like they had this light around them.”
“You mean, like an angel?”
“Well, now I’m not saying an angel,
but, you know, now that you mention it, yeah, sort of. I mean, I’m not saying it was an angel. I’m just saying that, now that you’ve put
that idea in my head, it did kind of look like an angel, in a way. You know?”
You go on like that for a while,
and eventually everyone admits that they saw the same thing. They all heard the same thing, too. So, you all decide you’re going to go down to
Bethlehem and see what the angel was talking about. When you get there, there it all is, just
like the angel said. There’s Mary, and
there’s Joseph, and there’s the baby, this baby who’s going to be the Messiah,
the Savior. In fact, that’s not really
accurate. The angel did not say the
child is going to be the Savior, the angel said the child already is the
Savior, even though he’s still a baby.
The angel did not tell the shepherds about something that was going to
happen someday. The angel told them
about something that was happening right now, in their presence.
The shepherds told everyone there
what had happened, about the angel and the heavenly host and all that. Everyone was amazed, as of course you would
be. Then, we’re told, “the shepherds
returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and
seen, which were just as they had been told.”
We never hear about these shepherds
again in the Bible. We don’t know what
happened to them. We don’t know what
they did. Again, though, try to imagine
yourself as one of them. You’ve seen the angel.
You’ve seen a great company of the heavenly host. You’ve seen the baby who is the Savior.
You think things would just go back
to normal after that? I don’t. Now, they may have stayed shepherds. The prospects for career advancement for a
shepherd were not that great back then, and they still had to make a
living. I don’t think they just went
about their business, though. Listen
again to what the scripture says. It says
“the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they
had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
I don’t think that’s something the
shepherds just did that night. I think
it’s something the shepherds did the rest of their lives. I think they told this story every chance
they got. I think they glorified and
praised God every time they could. Every
time they saw someone, they talked about this.
When they were by themselves, they talked about it to each other. I think they re-lived this night and
glorified and praised God every day that they remained on this earth. That might even be how Luke knew about the
story and included it in his gospel. If
so, that would make these ordinary, low-class people among the most important
people who ever lived.
There’s a lesson there for all of
us, I think. What those shepherds did is
what all of us are supposed to do. No
matter what we do for a living, no matter what our job is, even if we don’t
have a job at all, this is what we’re supposed to do. As we go about our lives, we’re supposed to
glorify and praise God always. We’re
supposed to talk about the Savior every chance we get. We’re supposed to spread the story of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ all our lives, for whatever time we have left on
this earth.
Do we do that? For most of us, the answer is no. It is for me.
I don’t do nearly as good a job of glorifying and praising God as I
should. I’ll do it in church. I’ll do it at a gathering where a prayer is
expected. But just as I go about my
everyday life? Not very often. That’s probably true of a lot of us.
The point is not to make anyone to
feel guilty. The point is that we need
to change. That’s the point of the whole
Christmas story, really. We need to
change. That’s part of why Jesus came to
earth. We need to change. Jesus brought a message that said we need to
change, that we need to turn away from our sins, that we need to glorify and
praise God always. It’s a message that
was true two thousand years ago, and it’s a message that’s still true today.
Any time is a good time to make
that change. There could be no better
day, though, than this day, Christmas Day.
On this day, we are doing what the shepherds did. We’re celebrating the birth of the
Savior. Let’s not stop with today. Let’s do what the shepherds did tomorrow, and
the next day, and the day after that.
Let’s glorify and praise God every day of our lives. Let’s spread the message of the Savior every chance
we get, as long as we’re on this earth.
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