Shepherds, nearby

I was tasked to preach on the shepherds as a part of an ongoing series on the characters of Christmas. This is my sermon, verbatim.

Good morning. 

The topic given to me is actually this long “Shepherds: As believers we must understand that the gospel reaches all people” and I decided to shorten it to “Shepherds, nearby”. Basically we will be looking at Luke 2. We are all familiar with the story so I propose to share some observations as we go over some of the main parts of this section of the Christmas story.

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.”

The story continues from chapter 1 where the problem of Mary’s pregnancy was resolved by God through a dream. Joseph was reassured that it was God’s will that he takes Mary as his wife and he did so but decided not to begin sexual relations with her until after she had given birth. A new issue had arisen: a census that required the couple to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

What I want to spend a little time on here is to point out the fact that when we read the text and comprehend what was going on, we discover a very human story, located in a specific place in Israel, in a specific time in history. It is important for us to grasp the import of these details because the Christmas story is usually told devoid of all these details that anchor the events in time and space. The Christmas story is seen as a story for children whereas the issues of sex, pregnancy, infidelity, divorce were at the centre of the drama. We focus on the angel, and Mary’s response (but not her concerns), we conveniently skip over the journey of some 150km, roughly from KL to Cameron Highlands, on foot, with Mary late into her third trimester, probably sitting on a donkey. How many bathroom breaks did she need, I wonder? We skip over the labour and the birth itself, likely with only Joseph on hand to help, and we move on to the serene mother, with her baby wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.

The way we recount the Christmas story, the audience would be predisposed to listen to it as a myth, a fable, or a children’s story. It is devoid of human emotion and interaction. Joseph is standing beside Mary and both of them are silent, while the shepherds enter, and just as silently, view the child, as one would view the body of a loved one or a friend, at their funeral.

I imagine the visit by the shepherds to be a joyous one as they surely know how to celebrate a birth. Would they have brought drinks? Did they leave their flock behind or brought them along? What would they ask Joseph and Mary? How did they tell Joseph and Mary about the angels, especially that choir? Didn’t it gladden the hearts of Joseph and Mary that they were not alone that night?

It is true that the bible does not give us much detail, but it is also true that the biblical account of the birth of the Christ-child is very much anchored in time and space, but when we portray the story we strip it of these details to focus on the message. What we don’t realise is that devoid of the facts that make people grasp the story as a real life story, the message is only an idea, a concept, one that has little relevance to the realities of life.

Why am I belabouring this point?

A long time ago, when I was a university student, Keat Peng, my FES staffworker, taught me this during a session on the uniqueness of the bible. He taught me that biblical truth is anchored in space and time. Unlike other holy scriptures, the bible is not a collection of thoughts and ideas, or even laws and instructions. It is primarily stories of God intersecting with man in space and time. His key point is that the space and time truths of the bible are unique testaments to the truth of God and his revelation of himself to us. Archeology that unearths evidence of the space-time veracity of Scripture is therefore a vital testimony to biblical truth.

As I thought of it further, I realised that all of us only exist in space and time but we have developed a sophisticated world of thought and ideas and are able to communicate them through writing, speech, plays, movies, music and poetry. We have since invented another virtual world and through the internet we can overcome space and distance, and we can overcome time, because anything we put on the internet can be reached at any time and instantly. But however wonderful and useful they are, their relevance only begins when they enter the real world. If I order something online, I still have to wait for someone to deliver my order to me. Just the ability to order something online is meaningless.

This brings me to my first point: While we may use all the wonderful developments in our society to communicate God’s truth, we must understand that they only serve to enrich and deepen, not take the place of, what we do in the real world. Humans are creatures that exist in space-time and we can only know God in space-time. The Christmas story is a wonderful example of the quality of God’s communication. He acts in space and time. The drama unfolds in space and time. God did not declare his love for us from heaven; he sent his Son into our dimension. This has a lot of implications in the way we choose to communicate God to others and I will pick this thought up in a while. Simply put, merely telling another “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” does not help a person know God. But when we love the person and are a blessing to them, then “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” has a space-time reality that the person can grasp. Our words clarify and deepen our actions, not substitute for them.

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 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 Savior 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 favor rests.”

At this point of the unfolding story, the birth of Jesus has already taken place. What happens now is what I term as God’s guest list. Who does God invite to witness the birth of his Son? Luke tells us, shepherds, who happen to be nearby, who were not looking for anything, not anticipating anything, just doing what they have always been doing: keeping watch over their flocks at night. There was nothing special about this group of shepherds; they just happened to be nearby. Yet God put up a show for them: an angel to announce the birth and give instructions where they can find the child, and a choir of angels, praising God. You cannot conclude that the angels were just in the act of worshipping God. They would do so in heaven but they did so on earth, with these shepherds as their audience.

It is possible to think that this was just a “by the way let’s get some people in to witness the birth”. When you see next week the lengths God went to communicate with the Magi, you know that the shepherds were truly his invited guests. 

Who would shepherds represent? To me, they represent everyman, the man on the street, and, in the collective consciousness of society, nobodies. My guess is that if they were to go to Jerusalem, nobody would have noticed them. They probably would have rudimentary education and would have scant perception of the theological import of the angel’s announcement. Yet God chose to break the news to them.

Who would these people be in our time and society? In rural settings, the farmer, but in the urban settings that most of us are in, they would be tradespeople—people who serve you, who sell you goods, who wrap for you what you buy—you get what I mean. They are people who barely register on your radar unless they happen to do something wrong to you.

These are people who would never get a chance to hear what the angel said, “good news that will cause great joy for all the people”. Perhaps “never” is too strong a word but you get what I mean: we don’t even notice them. Yet, you remember Jesus telling us of “that day when the goats would be separated out from among the sheep, and Jesus saying, “I notice what you do for those who are hungry, thirsty, the stranger, the one who needed clothes, the one who was in prison”. Who are these people? They are the ones society doesn’t see, but God sees, Jesus sees, and the sheep are those who also see. The goats, if you remember, were those who never saw.

We are busy paying attention to the rich and powerful, the well-dressed, well-heeled, and well-spoken but on the occasion of the birth of his Son, God sent angels to these shepherds, these nobodies, to invite them to see the child.

From the text, the only quality that these shepherds have, apart from their being shepherds, is that they were nearby. Unlike the Magi who were from the East, these shepherds were fortunate in that they happened to be nearby.

And so the other group that I would like us to think about: who are nearby to you? We make a big deal about sending people to far away places; we care about God’s work in Myanmar; we pray for churches in the Philippines. All well and good, unless we are neglecting those whom God has placed us in the midst of. Who is nearby? Or in language that you would immediately recognise, who is my neighbour?

I’m sure that you are aware that the context in which the lawyer asked Jesus, “who is my neighbour?” is when Jesus affirmed the lawyer’s answer that God’s law could be summed up as:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Luke 10:27)

I have come to understand that since God is not in time and space the only way we can truly express our love for him is when we obey his command to love our neighbour as ourselves. Yes we can say as sincerely and emotionally as we can that we love him but these words mean little if we are not obeying him to love our neighbour. As John puts it in his no-nonsense way: 

“Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.” (1 John 4:20-21)

I have heard a pastor preach that the only reason for the existence of the church, the raison d’ etre, is to evangelise. I have heard Christians, while they give room for what they call “good works”, claim that good works would amount to nothing if the Gospel is not shared. I have often heard from the pulpit calls to go and share the Gospel, but rarely, if ever, have I heard the call to let people experience and see for themselves—and here I go back to my first point—in space and time who a person who is saved by grace, indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit, can be in how he seeks to follow his Lord to be a beacon of light and love.

But from the mouth of our Lord, these words cannot be denied:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

We must not think that the Gospel is a formulation of words that we must communicate to another. The Gospel is the child, whom God has given to the world: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” The Gospel is that child, now a man, dying on a cross, yet crying out “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” The Gospel is that man, now our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, telling his disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” The Gospel is our Lord and Saviour, Son of Man, Son of God, before he returned to the Father, telling his disciples, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The Gospel is not words; the Gospel is a person, the Gospel is our Lord, our Master, our Saviour, to whom we owe our destiny, and now the Gospel dwells in us—Jesus calls us to BE his witnesses. The only way to help another person come to know him is to be like him to that person. It is not to shove a bunch of words down their ears. Yes, of course, we do not communicate silently. That would be very strange. But word without life is empty. Words should clarify and deepen the reality that our life exhibits, not substitute for it.

“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. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”

The final observation I wish to share with you is that at this point, the angels had left the shepherds alone and the shepherds decided to follow the instructions of the angel and seek out the Christ-child. And they found him, just as they had been told.

In doing so they had a God-story to tell, and tell they did. We were also told that Mary “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” What was she treasuring up? All the things that happened when she let God into her life.

The final point I wish to make is a simple one, yet one we often miss: You cannot experience God if you are not obeying him. And if you are not experiencing God, you have nothing to share. You may have the words that we say is the Gospel but they would be just words. The shepherds responded and they had a wonderful story to tell. Mary responded and she had many stories to tell. Do you have stories to tell or are we still only telling the stories that belong to the shepherds, and to Mary, and to Joseph, and to Zachariah and Elizabeth?

Christmas is the time when we celebrate the fact that God sent his Son to our world so that through him we might know God. When our Lord was about to leave to return to God, he commissioned his disciples to be his witnesses; he sends us into the world—Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth—so that through us, people might know him, and through him, people might reconnect with God once again.

Father, May the Holy Spirit empower us to see the people you see and have compassion on them, to love the people you have placed along our path, and to be as Christ to them all, so through our witness they may come to know our Lord as we know and love him, and through knowing our Lord, they may come to know you, God almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and be safe from your wrath, and blessed by your love.

Amen.