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Christmas Eve, 12/24/2013
Sermon on Luke 2:1-20, by Bradley Everett
Of all the characters in the Christmas story, I think the shepherds were always my favorite. When I was younger, I liked the shepherds because they were the closest things to cowboys the Christmas story had. At that time, I judged a story by two simple criteria: 1) did it have cowboys and 2) did it have horses. One or the other would suffice, but the really good stories had both. Since there was no mention of horses in the Christmas story, a bunch of sheepherders keeping night watch over the flocks, kind of wannabe “cowboys” captured my attention.
Over the years my appreciation of the shepherds has evolved. In a society where fame, renown and recognition are held up as virtues, the shepherds stand out, ironically because of their lowliness.
The shepherds were average people—maybe even a little below average if one considers the hierarchy of society at that time. After all, shepherding was not necessarily a career to which people aspired. It was one thing to be the person who owned the flock of sheep, it was another to be the one who spent day and night, roaming the rough hill country of Judea with the animals in search of grass and water, keeping them safe from the elements and predators. It was honest work, but not necessarily something you would want to make your life’s work.
Due to the nature of the work, shepherds often didn’t fit in so well with the rest of society. Wandering around the hills after sheep, the shepherds pretty much lived in their own world. Things that seemed important in the city, like fine manners, fashion and hygiene were not as important for the shepherds. So if people weren’t offended by their lack of social skills, there were likely put off by the shepherds’ very plain, practical clothes which carried the unmistakable stains and smells of men who spent their days doing the hard work of caring for livestock.
So in Luke’s Gospel we find these average guys, working hard, minding their own business, trying to make ends meet, just like so many of us today.
On the surface there was really nothing extraordinary about them—except for the not so small fact that they were dearly loved by God as are we all. And so it was to a bunch of shepherds that God sent an angel to announce the birth of Jesus. Not to Caesar Augustus, Quirinius the governor of Syria, or any other of the power brokers of that day, but to some simple shepherds camped out with their flocks on the hills near Bethlehem.
To them it was announced the Saviour of the world had been born and that God invited them to go see the newborn Messiah for themselves. Not in some far-off capital like Jerusalem or Rome, but in their own backyard, Bethlehem. And not in some fancy luxurious mansion, but in a place they could relate to and feel comfortable in—a stable.
God had this planned down to the last detail. God wanted these shepherds to meet his son and so sent Jesus somewhere they could find him, where they could savour the holiness of the moment, of being in the presence of their Saviour.
Thankfully not much has changed since that first Christmas some 2,000 years ago. While some details have been altered, the basics have remained the same. Tonight, each of us in the midst of our ordinary or extraordinary lives, was invited to this place by God, who loves us more dearly than we could ever imagine. The invitation was probably not as dramatic as an angel and a heavenly host. God may have used the church bulletin, an advertisement, a friend or family member to invite us here, but it was a divine invitation nonetheless. And whether we realize it or not, the purpose of our visit here is exactly the same as the shepherds’. We are here not just to remember the birth of Jesus but, like the shepherds, each of us have been called here to meet him, to experience the holiness of being in the presence of our Saviour who has come to free us from fear, sin and death. To the shepherds he was a tiny newborn baby, for us he is the risen and living Christ, the one who promised to be present wherever two or three gathered in his name, and who promised never to leave or forsake us.
While the night of Jesus’ birth was special and worthy of remembrance, it was no more holy than this night, for he is just as present, here with us now by the power of God, as he was in Bethlehem’s manger 2,000 years ago.
And tonight, having been invited here by God and been in the holy presence of Jesus, I pray that we will be like the shepherds in one more way. They left the stable changed. Having seen Jesus they were not transformed into raving fanatics, or religious nuts, but it says they left the place praising and glorifying God for all they had seen and heard. I pray as we walk out the doors and go our separate ways, we too will leave here changed for having been in the presence of Jesus, and because of that we will each thank God in our own way, quietly or publicly, for what we have seen and heard here tonight—the gospel message that God does love us, and that Jesus is with us.