Shepherds
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Maybe it’s like this with your kids too, but when you ask them about their day do you get answers like, “Fine?” On occasion I’ll ask my children if something unusual happened, and most of the time it was just a normal day. In fact, most days are like that, normal days. Normal days are filled with routines. I don’t know about you but if I don’t follow my routine I will forget something. A normal day for me is I wake up shave, brush teeth, shower, dress, make bed, coffee, Bible, drive to work usually take 25 but sometimes I’ll mix it up and take 75. I get in to work and start with email unless I have an early meeting and I’ll just take my laptop with me so I can read my email while I am in the meeting. Then my day revolves around solving mostly small problems, writing reports, with lunch thrown in there around noon. I then try to beat the traffic on Newtown and head home around 4:00.
If I were to ask you when was the last time you had a normal day probably all of you wouldn’t have to think back too much. But sometimes a normal day turns into an unusual, abnormal day. I mean it starts just like every other normal day, but something or things happen that don’t typically happen. Maybe you see or are involved in a car accident. Maybe you get distracted during your routine and forget your office key, or badge, and now you’re going to be late for your meeting. All of us have also had an unusual abnormal day.
But then there is another kind of day. It can be a good day or a bad day but it is what we would call memorable days. 911 is like that for those of us who were alive when it happened. I can remember sitting in my office and back then I used to check the news in the morning. And I read that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. And I can remember thinking, “Holy Cow what a terrible accident.” It had just become an abnormal day. I remember pulling up the live feed of the news when all of the sudden a second plane began to make its way to the other Twin Tower, and then the Pentagon, and then the one that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania and all of the sudden normal went to abnormal that went to memorable. As soon as the second plane hit I recall saying to a coworker, “Everything has changed.”
I just knew that the world we had grown accustomed to living in was no longer going to be the world in which I would continue to live. I had no idea just how much it would change or in what ways it would change, but change it has.
There are Christmas Days that are memorable days. I can remember all I wanted for Christmas was an Atari. I didn’t care about anything else. Atari with Asteroids. I think it may have been the Atari that led my parents to buy an additional TV. My brother and I would play for hours and hours. Kristi got me my first gold chain one Christmas, which was stolen during another memorable moment as I lay in a hospital bed fighting Spinal Meningitis. One Christmas my Dad got this funky level thing that had a suction cup with a little compressor on it. It said it would stick anywhere, so, I thought it would be funny to put it on my head. So, I stuck it on there hit the button and everyone got a big kick out of it. However, I was not prepared for the fact that everyone would get a far bigger kick out of the fact that it left a mark. A perfect circle bruise right on the top of my head.
I’m sure many of you have stories of when normal days became memorable days. However, I think we forget, most often because of familiarity, that the events surrounding the coming of Christ the first time happened on normal days.
Like the day the angel comes to visit Mary. Up until that point it was just a normal day.
Or the day Mary tells Joseph that God got her pregnant...I mean imagine that one. I’m pretty sure nothing else mattered on that day.
Or the shepherds who knew every hill and valley. They likely had far more normal days than abnormal ones. They were blue collar guys with a simple hope for the day, let me not lose one sheep. I’m sure they had a routine as well with the same destinations settling at the same campsites telling the same stories by the warmth of the fire. They had likely become used to looking into the night sky in awe of the number and the beauty of the stars. And I’m pretty sure that on that first Christmas Night as they lay looking the appearance of one angel would have made it memorable, but this was not just any other memorable night.
2 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
So, the first lesson of the shepherds is that God can make the normal memorable. In fact, I think that isn’t just true with a day, but it is also trues of your life. He doesn’t want you to live a normal and forgettable life. He wants you to live a memorable one.
The fact that God chooses to announce the birth of Jesus to a bunch of shepherds first is almost comical. I mean if you wanted to get the word out might kings be a better choice? We talked last week about the choice of Bethlehem for a birthplace is evidence that God is going to be all about making insignificant things significant and illegitimate things legitimate. Shepherds were not movers and shakers. They had little education and little aspiration. While their job was respected they were considered to be lower class. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but if you were believed to be of a lower class your testimony was also considered untrustworthy. By some accounts only women’s testimony was less trustworthy than a shepherds. Interestingly enough the first evangelists of Jesus’ birth would be shepherds and of his resurrection, women.
So, the second lesson of the Shepherds is that God pays little attention to what people think about you, and after you meet Jesus you’ll care less about it too.
“17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.”
I wonder if the reason we don’t tell others about meeting Jesus and the change we have experienced is because we’ve never really had that memorable moment. That undeniable moment when we go from dark to light, death to life. The shepherds made known and all who heard wondered.
The last lesson of the Shepherds.
When we share about our moment of meeting Jesus I believe without a doubt that whoever hears it walks away wondering. No matter how confident they may present their position. They wonder. I think often we feel pressure to seal the deal, and because we really don’t know how to do that we just don’t tell our story. But when we do that we are acting like God. All we need to do is tell our story. People are going to wonder. And here’s the good news if they end up believing don’t you think God knows what to do next.
PRAY
MOMENT