God Uses Ordinary People
This is the message I preached last night at our Christmas Eve service. The gospel text is Luke 2:1-20. Have a blessed Christmas and New Year.
Finally, we’re here. Our Advent journey is
completed and now we have gotten to the part of the story we love so much—baby
Jesus has been born. Now we can answer the question that we’ve been hearing for
so long, it’s Christmas!!!!
At the time of Jesus’ birth, society was very
class-oriented. There were distinct stratum of society and shepherding was
among the lowliest of occupations. Shepherding in Jesus’ time was far different
than it is today. It was a 24 hour a day
job outside despite wind and weather.
These shepherds in Luke’s gospel slept outside with their sheep! They
couldn’t go into the house, take a break and go back to the sheep when they
felt like it. Because of their working and living conditions, they were
probably very smelly. After all, these were not well-to-do men who lived in the
lap of luxury.
Shepherds
were at the bottom of the socio-economic world of their day. That being the
case, they had no right, no expectation, and no hope in the world of being
touched by the divine.
So,
the shepherds were working and it was dark and getting cold. They were occupied
with their duties, minding their own business and BAM—an angel appeared to
them! Why in the world would an angel come to them? They were nobodies. If God
had something to say shouldn’t he appear to the people in charge, who could
have some influence in their world? But God did not appear to the Roman
political leaders or the religious elite of the temple in Jerusalem. God sent
his messenger to ordinary, working class, smelly, dirty, tired, cold shepherds
at night.
In
the dark of that night, the brightness of this angelic appearance was something
they could not ignore. God’s glory shone in that blackness and they were scared
to death. In typical heavenly messenger style, the first words out of the
angel’s mouth were “Don’t be afraid!” That’s easy for an angel to say!
The
angel had good news for the shepherds and for all people, including us. More than any of the other gospel writers,
Luke, presents Jesus as the savior of all people—no matter what their gender,
status, origin, wealth or poverty, Pharisees and sinners alike. Luke is the
only gospel in which Jesus eats with Pharisees and sinners and tax collectors.
This good news of great joy that included lowly shepherds was just the cure for
their great fear.
But
there is more. The angel had a sign for the shepherds. To find this savior,
they’d look in Bethlehem for a baby wrapped in strips of cloth lying in a
manger. Now there was nothing unusual about a baby being wrapped in bands of
cloth in those days. It would be like swaddling a baby today. That was normal,
but this manger business was quite another matter. It was such a distinct and
important sign for the shepherds that Luke mentions it three times in this
passage.
Now if all this wasn’t enough excitement for
one night, a heavenly host or army of angels suddenly shows up declaring God’s
glory and the promise of peace. God wanted to make sure the shepherds knew
something special was going on, as if at this point of their highly unusual
night of work, they could have any doubt. In his usual fashion, God does things
outside the box we put him in.
The Jerusalem temple and its sanctuary were
considered to be the meeting place between heaven and earth. God’s glory, which
was usually associated with the temple, was now being manifested in the fields
where sheep graze. The religious and political power brokers had been left out
of the loop. God isn’t following the rules by speaking where he is supposed to,
when he is supposed to or how he is supposed to. God is appearing to the most
unlikely people in the most unsuitable means and places.
If we take seriously
the claims of God and allow him to use us, we will find ourselves living
counter-cultural lifestyles. We will find ourselves responding differently to
situations and people. We may not make the connection as to why we are
different, but time spent with God will change us. The shepherds’ encounter
with God’s messenger put them on notice that a new world order is coming which
is radically different than the former one.
How did the shepherds respond to all of this?
They recognized that God had spoken to them, so they hurried off to Bethlehem
to check things out. Having found the holy family, the shepherds shared God’s
message with them and anyone else that would listen. The hearers were amazed
and Mary kept these events in her heart pondering what she had been told. That
doesn’t necessarily mean Mary understood all that had happened. She was trying
to make sense of it all.
After finding the baby Jesus, What did the shepherds
do? They returned to their sheep glorifying and praising God (vv. 18-20). They
went back to work, but not to business as usual. The shepherds’ world had been
turned upside down and would never be the same again.
The shepherds responded to God’s message.
What will we do?
Will we let God’s word change us, go and tell others the
message and live lives that are forever different?
Or will we simply hear the
Christmas story yet again because it’s what we’ve always done on Christmas Eve?
Will we let this news of great joy amaze us, but go about our lives unchanged?
If God can use shepherds who were nobodies, he can and will use us if we let
him.
The
promise of Christmas simply is this. God comes down to dwell not with the high
and mighty, but with the lowly, unworthy, and unexpected. In this act, God’s
makes his love known. God came at Christmas that we might have hope and courage
amid the dark and lonely times and places of our lives. We gather so that as
God entered time and history through Jesus, God might enter our lives as well
(David Lose).
God invites us into his life as he did the shepherds. Our world
is being turned upside down. As we leave this church tonight, let our response
to the gift of the Christ child be the same as the shepherds’. Go into the
village and tell everyone you meet what an incredible thing God has done. Amen.
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