Not Just Today

The Sunday night message in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  December 25, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Luke 2:1-20.

As we’ve been looking at the Christmas story, we’ve been pointing out 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 almost 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 one of the points 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.