(December 07, 2024) Dr Richard Winter encourages…

Image a dark night on a lonely hillside scenario…

‘Feel cold, Mordie?’ asks Nathaniel. But before Mordecai can answer young Elijah opines: ‘It’s always cold out here at night! Why ask such silly questions?’ Before Nathaniel can respond, Jacob interrupts with ‘Listen… can you hear… see something?’

Those lonely shepherds are instantly troubled. Maybe a hungry wolf. The nearby village is asleep, the sheep were asleep, now they’re disturbed. The shepherds pull their robes a little tighter and inch closer to a small fire.

And suddenly—

Real Scenario
Luke 2:8-20 records such a setting— a cold quiet night on a hillside with sheep and shepherds. He tells about the divine coming from heaven to present the world with a very special gift that those shepherds are the first to know about!

Dr Luke writes: ‘An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom His favour rests”’ (v9-12).

Verses 15-16 tell of their acceptance and obedience: ‘When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger (v16). ‘Hurried off’ is speudo… guess how quickly they moved!

Most people are familiar with this passage, even if they rarely crack open a Bible. But my concern is that with all the annual Christmas stories, we can take the shepherds’ story for granted and overlook just how amazing this incident really is. It’s not just about God’s love for some shepherds… it’s about God’s love for everyone, a message of hope for each one of us today!

Sad Scenario
In this season so many people are concerned with being politically correct saying or singing things like—

• ‘Happy holidays, have a great vacation.’
• ‘We’re dreaming of a white Christmas.’
• ‘Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh.’
• ‘Let’s rock around the Christmas tree.’
• ‘I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus…’

People love a holiday but forget that word means ‘Holy Day.’ Many go into debt because of a Christian Holy Day… for many it takes up to May to get out of the Christmas-rush-into-debt! As Christians we lament the fact that Christ is progressively being taken out of Christmas. Christ after all is the reason for Christmas… but the world makes this a money-making-materialistic season.

I can’t image Christ ever thinking this is what we should do to celebrate His birth. Jesus is looking for authentic Christians with an understanding of the basics— the story of Mary and Joseph and a baby who would be the Saviour of all humanity.

Shepherds’ Scenario
Who does God first announce the birth of His Son to? Who does He invite to come and see the new baby? A ragtag collection of sheepherders!

There is only one announcement of Christ’s birth recorded in scripture— and it’s given to a bunch of uneducated, smelly, low-class shepherds!

Let me tell you about shepherds. They were—

• Social and religious outcasts.
• ‘Outsiders’ having to watch smelly sheep!
• Unclean according to Jewish religious law.
• Unable to participate in feasts and holy days.
• The last people you’d expect God to take notice of.

Sadly, shepherds were looked down on and weren’t able to participate fully in the religious life of the community. They were borderline social outcasts looked on with suspicion, like people today might look on gypsies or carnival workers.

Since they were constantly on the move to find new pasture for their flocks, they were often accused of being thieves. If something came up missing, it must have been those shepherds. They were not permitted to give testimony in a legal proceeding, because their word wasn’t considered trustworthy.

And on top of all that, they really didn’t have much contact with other people. Most of the time, they were ‘living out in the fields’ (v8).

• Theirs was not a 40-hour a week job.
• They were with the sheep 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• During the day, they led the sheep to grass and water, watching while they grazed.
• At night, they didn’t come home, having to keep an eye out for predators such as wolves.
• They actually slept in the sheep pen with the sheep to guard against theft and animal attack.

But note: A good shepherd could identify each of his sheep by sight and they knew him. John wrote about faithful shepherds and their sheep: ‘The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice’ (John 10:2-4).

Being a shepherd was lonely, wearisome, usually very boring and tedious, and sometimes extremely dangerous. They had a lot of contact with sheep, but very little exposure to people and social contact. Because they had hours and hours with nothing to do but watch sheep eat grass, many shepherds learned to play the flute or some other instrument. No wonder that David, the shepherd who became king of Israel, was such an accomplished musician.

God’s Scenario
Imagine you’re God and you want to announce the most amazing joyous news ever; an event that will literally change the course of history— the birth of the One for whom Israel has been waiting for, hoping and praying about for thousands of years; your only Son Jesus who will be the Saviour of the whole world, not just Israel!

To whom do you announce this? Who do you invite to come and see the baby? The nation’s most important people?

• Religious leaders: Priests, rabbis?
• Political leaders, kings, governors, even Caesar?
• Military leaders, wealthy merchants, people of distinction, news media?

None of these got the invitation by the angelic messenger! Only those few poor, religiously outcasted shepherds. Why did God send His angels to announce the birth of Christ to them, inviting only them to come and see the child? Were they especially pious, unusually holy? Even though they couldn’t participate in organised religion, were they outstanding believers in God? Were they perhaps anticipating God visiting them? No? There’s nothing in Luke’s record to indicate that they were more religious than anyone else.

So why did God send the angels to the shepherds? Several possible answers have been proposed, such as the fact that Jesus Himself is later called the Good Shepherd, caring for us His flock.

But I prefer a simpler explanation… God doesn’t—

• Show favouritism.
• Respect kings and princes more than ordinary folk.
• Value priests and pastors above the people in the pews.
• Give preferential treatment to one group of people over another.
• Discriminate on the basis of class, profession, religion elite, wealth, or social standing.

He wanted to show that His love is available to all on the same basis— faith and obedience. In fact, scriptures such as 2Samuel 22:28, Psalm 149:4, Isaiah 66:1-2 and 1Peter 5:5-6 indicate that God loves to lift up the lowly and humble, while at the same time bringing down the proud and self-satisfied.

God was demonstrating by His choice of these humble shepherds being the first to receive the news of Christ’s birth that Jesus is the Saviour of all equally. His love is offered indiscriminately to anyone who will repent and believe, anyone who will trust in Christ as Saviour.

Our Scenario
Paul wrote: ‘Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong’ (1Corinthians 1:27).

In other words, God especially likes to use people who are humble, lowly and ordinary, because that makes His power and wisdom all the more evident. When He does use people who are obviously very gifted, the results can be attributed to human effort and human talent alone. But if God uses people of obviously low-to-average abilities, then all the credit for the results goes to Him.

Dear reader, if don’t know Christ, or do but are identifying with these shepherds and seeing yourself on the outside looking in, be encouraged!

I can imagine that many nights those shepherds sat in those cold, lonely fields with nothing but dumb animals to keep them company, looking over at the village and seeing the lights of the homes, hearing the faint sound of people laughing, and wishing they could be a part of that.

Maybe you feel that way too… on the fringes socially, that you’re not one of the ‘beautiful people,’ nor especially wealthy, powerful or influential, unlikely to ever see your name in the paper for some great accomplishment. Or when you compare your level of religious observance to others, it isn’t favourable: your church attendance is spotty as is your Bible reading and prayer time. You think that God probably doesn’t have a very favourable opinion of you.

You know what? A lot of people, deep down, secretly feel like that! Even people you’d think of as ‘having it all together.’ On the surface, everything is going great but on the inside you feel you don’t fit in. You think God doesn’t really care about someone like you.

If any of these descriptions strike a chord with you, I have good news for you! God loves you… just like He loved those sheepherders. You too are special to Him, as those lowly shepherds were. So special that He gave them the incredible privilege of being the first to hear of Christ’s birth, being the first people other than Joseph and Mary to lay eyes on the Son of God, and being the first to tell others about Him!

He didn’t give those privileges to high flyers but to shepherds— humble, ordinary people with no high opinions of themselves. Simple folk who were willing to believe what God told them and to do what He commanded them.

When they heard the news, they didn’t seek religious professionals for a second opinion or get bogged down debating how they were going to find one small baby in Bethlehem, or worry about who was going to watch their sheep! They simply accepted what the angels told them, moving quickly to obey.

Will you do that today? Will you be an authentic believer concentrating on Christian essentials? Now God didn’t send an angel to give you that news, but He had me share this article of the good news of salvation with you.

God is inviting you today to receive from Him, just like He invited those shepherds. Will you receive His love, believe what He says and do what He asks? Will you acknowledge your need of forgiveness of sin and put your trust in Jesus for salvation? You don’t need to be a genius or a member of the ‘in’ crowd. You just need to believe and obey.

Christ’s Scenario
Here’s Jesus’ promise: ‘… God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16). I pray you will make that decision to trust Christ.

One other thought: How did those shepherds respond to what they’d seen and heard? ‘… they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child … returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen’ (Luke 2:17-18,20).

Let’s do the same, especially at this time of the year, for the sake of those who still need to hear the good news (Matthew 28:18-20)!

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Dr Richard Winter pastors The Connection Church, Huntington Beach, California. Link: OnlinerConnect@gmail.com. Links: Luke’s Christmas Message / Tiny Town – Stunning Significance
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