Shepherding was not a glamorous vocation back in the single digit years

This is my sermon text for my Christmas Morn sermon. I used Luke 2.8-20 as my text.

Shepherding was not a glamorous vocation back in the single digit years.

It was often the job of last resort. If you couldn’t do anything else, become a shepherd. You didn’t really have to learn a skill, just to count. You must be willing to chase off, and sometimes fight off, wild animals. You had to be willing to spend a LOT of time outside. But one of the things about being a shepherd was that you were exempted from attending worship. By spending all of that time outdoors and around animals, they were unclean by the laws and traditions of the day.

As being ruled to be ‘unclean,’ they were not allowed in the Temple or synagogues until they proved they were clean to the rabbis and chief priests. Experts believe that many shepherds felt that if they were not wanted by God, or more accurately, God’s representatives, then they did not want to have anything to do with God. Ironically, like the sheep they tended, shepherds had wandered away from the flock.

They were not regular attendees in worship. They probably only came on the BIG holy days, or when someone strongly encouraged them. When they did come, it was probably out of a sense of obligation, and they did not feel like they were wanted. <pause>

So it was to people who had turned away from God that the hosts of heaven came to bring “good news of great joy for all of the people.” I can understand why the shepherds were terrified. They hadn’t been to the Temple in years, and now the messengers of the Most High show up in the middle of the night in their fields.

How would you feel if you hadn’t been to church in a long time, or at least not on a regular basis, and angels showed up? Would you quake at the sight? <pause>

The angel told them the promised, and long awaited, Messiah had been born in Bethlehem. As a sign, they would find a newborn baby, wrapped in strips of cloth, asleep in a feeding trough. To encourage them to seek out this sign, more angels than they could count, and they are professional counters, saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” When the angels left, they decided to go to Bethlehem to see this sign, this baby.

They went into Bethlehem. They found Mary and Joseph and the baby, lying in a manger. Then the shepherds told everyone what they had been told by the angels about this baby. All who heard were amazed, including Mary who “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” The shepherds went on giving praise, honor and glory to God “for all they had heard and seen.”

God decided the way to redeem humanity and restore the broken relationship between God and all of us was to send His Son to live among us, live as one of us. For that Son to ultimately be crucified as a way to show how deep God’s love is for each and every one of us. When it was time to make the birth announcements, God sent a host of angels to … shepherds.

There was not an angelic appearance in the courts of Rome, nor in the Temple in Jerusalem. But to certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay, the messengers of God proclaimed the holy birth. “Good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

Not to Caesar.

Not to Herod.

Not to the Chief Priests.

But to those who feel abandoned by God, rejected by the church.

Isn’t it amazing the lengths and depths that God will go to show that we are all beloved, treasures of God?

The announcement of the birth of the Messiah, of Our Savior Emmanuel, was made to people who felt out of the range of God’s love, and the declaration was made “to you.” The Messiah, the Christ child was born for you.

God knows that those who most desperately need to hear the message of God’s love and grace and mercy and forgiveness and peace are those who are least likely to come to a house of worship to hear it. So on that night around 2000 years ago, God sent a personal message.

It affected them so deeply, to know that they were not outside of God’s embrace that they “made known what had been told.” They went “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.” After realizing God hadn’t given up on them, to borrow from the prophet Isaiah, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.” No one is outside of God’s love, redemption and grace.

That is as true today as it was then. And people need to hear that message.

So if you feel like a shepherd, that God, or some of God’s people, don’t want you; you feel abandoned or ignored by God; or that you’re too bad, or been gone too long, or not worthy or that whatever else has kept you apart from God. I have a message for you. “Do not be afraid! I bring you good news of great joy for all the people: for YOU a Savior has come!”

If you don’t feel like a shepherd, but you know someone who does, you need to be a messenger. Be an angel (because the word in Greek from which we get angel actually means messenger), and share the good news of great joy, that for ALL of the people, for YOU, a Savior has come!

Share the Good News! Proclaim the Great Joy!

A Savior, the Messiah, the Christ has come FOR YOU!

Give glory to God in the highest heaven.

And on Earth, peace and God’s favor to everyone.

O Holy Night as performed on Studio 60 (2006)

This is my absolutely favorite version of this hymn. The ideas behind this was (in the TV story) giving an opportunity for musicians displaced by Katrina an opportunity to earn money through performing on national TV. 

You can download an mp3 version of the song WITHOUT the dialog from this site (please give a donation to the Tipitina Foundation listed just below the download).