The Christmas Shepherds

The Christmas Shepherds

Luke 2:8-20

We have most likely taken for granted the story of the shepherds out in the cold, dusty field that first Christmas night.  We have been lulled to sleep by our plastic nativity scenes on the mantle, or by little, fidgety boys with their glued-on beards.  Our Americanized perceptions of the shepherds in the Christmas story are clean, likable fellows who behold a great message from a pretty little angel who instructs them to go over the hill to Bethlehem to see a cut, clean newborn all settled in the manger where it was sweet, well-lit, and warm.  The common illustration of the night of Jesus’ birth is void of the dirt of everyday life, the screams of a woman in labor, and the violence associated with bringing a child into this world.  Just as Mary was not a clean, well-dressed girl, the shepherds were not fidgety, pimpled-faced boys standing silently outside the stable in the cold.

Who then were these tenders of the sheep?  To understand who they were, we need to see this rag-tag bunch through the eyes of a first-century Jew.  These men, older boys perhaps (so our nativity descriptions may not be that far off), weren’t very well accepted in Jewish society.  They were somewhat ostracized and ridiculed in ancient Israelite society.  They weren’t the bankers, the moneymen; they did not hold a great amount of wealth.  They were not the priests or scribes; they didn’t handle the things of the temple, the things of God.  Moreover, they stunk!  Spending all day in the field, with the glaring sun, surrounded by dirty, sweaty, and stupid sheep does not exactly appeal to the aromatic senses.  One must remember that there was no Old Spice or Herbal Essence in those days to keep you smelling great even into the night.  In any case, I’m not sure how many Israelite ladies would be attracted to “Scent of Lamb” with a dash of campfire ash mixed in for good measure.  With all that said, it can be seen that the shepherds were not the celebrities of their day, but rather the normal, working-class, blue-collar workers of Bethlehem.  They did provide a great service to their nation however, for out of their flocks came food, clothing, and the sacrifices the priests would bring before God in order to atone for the sins of the Israelite people.

With this in mind, the folks who were not valued or praised in society were of utmost importance to the Lord.  For it was unto them, the lowly, average, working-class, that the Almighty God ordained to showcase the message of His greatest gift.  When you have great news to tell, who do you go to first?  If you ace a test, or make the dean’s list, get a promotion, or a hefty raise, who is the first to know?  You finally obtain by skill and divine luck that elusive hole in one, do you keep it to yourself?  Not a chance!  You tell someone who will rejoice with you, congratulate you, spread the good new further, not someone who will reply sarcastically or uninterested.  After such great news, you do not go running to the donkey Eyore whose depression and utter lack of enthusiasm and joy will shove your joy and elation back to the dirt and grim of the gutter.  The Father had great news to tell his world; news that would alter the course of history forever.  He sees these shepherds as worthy to receive this message of Christ’s birth.  He doesn’t look to the religious, the ‘righteous’, the rich, the Romans.  He sought the humble, the destitute, the normal, everyday, working people. The ordinary, insignificant people in the eyes of the rest of the culture were the first to be equipped and charged by God to proclaim His wonderful works to the world.  These shepherds would never be able to hold the audience of Herod, or Caesar.  Yet, they were the audience of the One King, and it was upon these that the Father was pleased to tell.

In previous times, God chose to reveal Himself and His words through the prophets:  men set apart from normal life to herald the work and message of God.  These shepherds were not prophets like Isaiah or Ezekiel.  For the past four hundred plus years God had been silent in His communication with Israel.  The Inter-Testamental period of the Bible was somewhat dark, for God had no real voice in the public world.   The means through which God would reveal Himself was changing.  It was no longer prophets who would proclaim the word of the Lord, but first and ultimately through His Son, and then through body, the church.  The church, composed of ordinary, everyday people, was to be the means through which God’s mysteries would be revealed to His world.  The shepherds take the first semblance of the work of the church:  to proclaim the Name of Jesus to the world.  They make the most unlikely evangelists.

As these guys were sitting around the fire, perhaps catching a little sleep, an angel suddenly appeared in the sky above them.  We must remember that these shepherds were down-to-earth, tough, weather-beaten guys.  It would probably have taken something very significant to convince them this was truly happening.  Notice their response to the angels appearing: “They were greatly afraid (9).”  Now we’ve all seen angels portrayed in nativity scenes in plays and cantatas; they are usually portrayed by pretty girls who just smile and float above the stable scene, and they sing soothing songs while looking comforting and cuddly.  I’ve never quite been afraid of one of those angels, and if I’ve never been afraid of one of those angels, these guys would not have been ‘greatly afraid.’  This angel must have been terrifying to behold, for these strong, manly men are quaking in their sandals.  They are concerned for their lives, for they think that this angel is here for their judgment, punishment and gruesome death.  This is only after one angel appears; next a whole host of them come into the sky!  The “heavenly host’ was an army, a military corps of angels, terrifying to behold.  They resembled a host to accompany a king.  They were not there to accompany one into battle, but to accompany one into humanity.

These angels came to proclaim a message not of judgment and wrath, but one of life and salvation.  What they came to herald and proclaim was news of a great joy, not of destruction, a universal sound, and a worldwide event.  Essentially, it was a birth announcement:  a birth of a king.  Although announced long ago by Isaiah [7:14/9:6], it was brought to pass here in a field above Bethlehem.  They announced the birth of a Savior, a king, the long-awaited Messiah, the Christ [11].  Throughout Israel’s history they had been looking for a king, for God’s anointed one to come establish His kingdom on earth and to deliver His people from political and social bondage.  The Jews had been under foreign oppression for most of their existence, and presently under the thumb of Roman rule.  Consequently, they were looking for a king who would come in force to take over and bring fierce war to free His people.  You see this mindset even in King Herod as He sought to kill all the babies:  he definitely did not want a king rising from the Jews to usurp his throne and power.  The Old Testament is full of examples and prophesies pointing to a Messiah, a Savior of the Jews.  [Psalm 2:2 / 2 Samuel 7:16 / Daniel 2:44, 7:13-14 / Isaiah 9:6-7]  However, it was not a physical kingdom that was to be set up.  The Jews were drastically mistaken in their conquering king imagery.  The Messiah, Jesus, will return as a conquering king when He comes for a second time.  John the Baptist announced the coming of the kingdom in Matthew 3:2.  The kingdom of God had arrived, but in a different light than what was originally perceived and hoped for.  Instead of the Messiah saving His people from the Roman oppression, He came to liberate them (and us) from sin-filled oppression [John 1:29 / Matthew 1:21].  Jesus came to setup a kingdom of righteousness that was not of this world:  a kingdom to liberate and save those under a reign and tyranny far worse than any of the Caesars.  The reign of sin and death was held over man since the garden, but now He who takes away the sin of world has come.  Real freedom is not freedom to do whatever you wish, but freedom from the sinful life of death and destruction.  Real freedom is deliverance from this life and brought into real life in Christ and it has now come to us [Col 1:13-14].  This can be seen from the angelic song proclaimed that night.

The ultimate reason for Jesus’ birth was to bring glory to God the Father.  For God is seeking above all to make a Name for Himself so all will know the life He has prepared for His creation.  The incarnation of Christ is the summation of all of God’s work, and stands as the key to brining glory to His great Name.  The incarnation brings glory to God for it begins to reconcile His love for sinners and His love for His own Glory.  By Jesus’ life culminating in His sacrificial, atoning death on the cross of Calvary, God placed upon Him the punishment and wrath that we were due to receive for our sins.  Because we are sinful men and women, we deserve death for rebelling against the God who created us.  We are at odds with Him for we think we know how to run the universe, and that we deserve all the glory, but only He can hold the galaxies in His hand, and only He is great enough to deserve the glory.  Our sin separates us from Him, and we deserve to be eternally punished in that separation.  Therefore, we need a Savior to reach out to us and bring us back into relationship and right standing with the Lord [Romans 5:1,6 / Ephesians 2:17 / Colossians 1:20-21].  It was the birth of this Savoir that the angels proclaimed that cold, Christmas night.

The second half of the angelic song speaks of peace and goodwill to men.  The shepherds did not deserve this good news, and neither do we.  For God shows us His love and gives us Christ for us only because He wants to and has pleasure in doing that.  It is His sovereign pleasure that rests on men that allows us to partake of His salvation.  God delivers for us His love, mercy, grace.  This brings peace between us and the Lord, for we did not have to bear His eternal punishment, but Jesus did for us as He hung on the cross.  It is only through God’s goodwill and good pleasure toward us that we have come from death to life and from judgment to grace [Ephesians 2:4-8 / II Thessalonians 2:16-17 / I John 4:9].

After the angles leave the fields, the shepherds do not wait around till morning to go find Christ.  They do not sit around and say “Man that was really cool!  Don’t see that everyday!”  Their response to the Heavenly message is direct and instantaneous.  They are told about the Christ-child, but there was not direct call for them to go seek Him out:  the angels do not have to push them into Bethlehem.  After hearing of the message of a Messiah, they cannot sit around.  Their direct response to the angelic message implies they knew that Christ was coming.  They were Jewish, and they knew what the Scriptures foretold.  This likely motivated their heightened response to go over to Bethlehem.  Luke also does not comment what they had done with their sheep.  They might have just abandoned them on the hillside in excitement and anticipation of finding the Savior, the Messiah.  On any terms, they did not sit back and plan out their strategy, or have a game plan laid out: they went “with haste” to find Jesus.

They also recognized the origin of the message, that it was divine.  This might have been really hard to ignore when the dark night sky is lit up with a heavenly host of brightly shining, angelic beings.  The shepherds recognize that their king has come, and they go out to find Him.  They don’t doubt, or second-guess the nature of Christ’s location.  “A stable?  Are you sure?  You must have misspoken: you meant a nursery right, not a manger?”       They do not question the angelic message of Christ’s birth into a lowly barn, they just get up and go.

The other question that these guys do not raise is the question of their place in this story.  There are no perplexing thoughts of their importance or their significance.  They do not complain “Oh, I am not worthy or good enough to seek the Messiah!  He’d never have me in His presence!  I am just a lowly shepherd.”  These thoughts of relevancy to God’s message are shattered when they realize and understand that
“God has revealed this to us! [15]” Praise God that He esteems the lowly and humble as infinitely worthy to receive the message of salvation and grace.  There is no one too low, or too stupid, or too bad to come into the presence of Christ:  all are welcome at His throne.

It might have proven rather difficult to find the manger and the stable since the angel did not specifically tell them where to actually find Him.  There were no explicit directions (“If you go to first street, take a right until you hit the Best Western and He’s in the stable to the rear”) to find the baby, the shepherds might have had to search for Him a bit.  This search does not discourage them either; they find the baby in the manger and are transformed.  Take a moment to realize the place where God met these shepherds…it was in a barn, a stable.  The shepherds would have been comfortable here.  If Jesus would have been in some fancy inn, or in a palace, the shepherds might not have gone to such extremes to find Him for they would not have been comfortable in the luxury of a hotel or mansion.  God meets us where we are and reveals Himself as relevant in each of our lives, even those uneducated, common, and without beauty in our world.

Once they see the Christ-child, they cannot hold it in once the message of salvation is disclosed to them before their very eyes.  The shepherds then leave the stable rejoicing, praising God for the glory that was revealed to them.  They tell all of those they can find what has been revealed to them and to the whole world: that God has come to earth and dwelt among His people.  Immanuel; God with us!  Once they have seen Jesus, they are changed and enraptured with the news of God come to earth.

The people around the guys are astonished and confused at what these guys have to say.  Some responses they might have met with were: “Why aren’t you in the fields with the sheep?  What are you doing here in town?”  “Have you guys dipped into the eggnog a little early?”  The folks around them did not understand, for they “marvel” and “wonder” at what the sheep herders have to say.  The people in Bethlehem cannot truly understand what is going on in that stable.  We do not know if the shepherd’s message had any effect on the people of Bethlehem.  It is not disclosed to us by Luke if the people began to steam toward the stable behind the inn.  There were no news journalists, or live media coverage of the event, no mass crowds pressing in on the manger to admire the baby.  Only a handful of rank shepherds to proclaim the news of the Messiah to a lost world.  Their proclamation may have sounded like drunken babble to some and dismissed as only mad ravings.  Many Jews thought they knew what the Messiah would look like; he would not be born in a manger.  “He is David’s son…we will know Him when He gets here.  He cannot be who you say Him to be!”

The shepherds then go back to their fields, back to the sheep.  There were no TV interviews, no book deals (“I saw the Messiah: A Shepherd’s Tale”).  They did not seek publication or a platform, for all we know is that “the shepherds returned” [20].  They go back to their normal, everyday job, to their lives.  Yet, they are completely transformed.  The Son of God has entered their world, made them significant, and made them alive.  Their response to Christ has now been made known throughout the ages.  They worshiped and praised God, and proclaimed His birth to thousands of people across geography and history.  Later on when the nights became cold, or the rain came, as they huddled close to campfire, they would tell the story of that night to each other.  They handed it down to their children and their grandchildren.  “Christ has come!  A Savoir is born!  Even to us!  Us shepherds!”  They might have been in the crowds when he taught on the mountain.  They might have seen the lame walk, the blind see, and deaf hear.  They could have been around when Jesus was mocked, scourged, and crucified.    The shepherds were changed because God opened up the sky to proclaim His message of life and love to His people.

We as shepherds today must accept what God has done for us.  He has told us through His word and through these shepherds who He is and what He has done for man.  He has come to earth as a baby to walk this earth until He came to a cross that was meant for me and you.  His cross and tomb was not the final resting place however, for He only used the grave for three days.  His resurrection transformed history and has transformed all those who believe and trust in His Name.  If we are like the shepherds in this story, we too must be significantly changed by this message of a Savior that has been born unto us.  We have had a message revealed to us; how do we respond?  Do we seek Christ?  Have we found and seen Him?  Have our lives been transformed because of that encounter?  Do our lives praise God and evangelize to our world?  Do we think we are somebody or something now that we have seen Christ?  Do we return to our lives transformed forever because the message of the incarnation of the Messiah has been made true in our hearts and minds?  Do we know that unto us a child is born and unto us a Savior is given?  For Christ has come and invites all of us to see Him and know Him.