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The Christmas Shepherds: Why God Picked Them and What They Teach Us

You ever feel like you’ve missed Christmas? Where it came, went, you did a bunch of activities—but you kind of missed it?

Most people did. Most everybody in Israel and even Bethlehem missed the first Christmas. There were only a very few people who actually got it.

Even the Wise Men missed it, as they were a couple years late getting to Bethlehem. It’s been said that it should have been the Wise Woman, because they would have gotten there on time (they would have asked directions), and then on arriving, they would have cleaned the stable and given the baby a baby rattle and some diapers—not gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Then we have Simeon and Anna–those two old people who were excited to meet Jesus—yet their stories happen a week or so after Christmas.

Only a very few humans got Christmas. And who were they? They were the shepherds.

Why the shepherds? Why were they picked? Why did they get Christmas when everyone else missed it?

First, the shepherds wouldn’t be busy.

In a time of stress—tyranny, taxation, and travel (see Luke 2:1-3)—the shepherds were simply outside watching sheep. Humming to their sheep, counting the stars.

Why the shepherds? For one thing, they wouldn’t be busy. They didn’t have anything particularly pressing. They weren’t preoccupied.

It’s worth asking: if we had been in Bethlehem that night, would we have been too busy? Would we have been able to push pause and savor what was happening?

Like the dog whose leash gets caught in the car door and ends up running/rolling 20-30 mph, we too have gotten ourselves leashed to a culture that’s going way too fast. It’s an unsustainable pace, and there will be a price. If we allow ourselves to become as busy as our culture says we should be—involved in every status-raising activity that calls our name—our lives will be a mile wide and an inch deep. We’ll end up leaving God, our families, and ourselves behind, even as we end up going nowhere. We keep too busy for what matters and in the end, when we look back, we’ll say, “I missed it.”


The Christmas Shepherds: “In a time of stress—tyranny, taxation, and travel—the shepherds were simply outside watching sheep.”


Why the shepherds? Why did they get in on Christmas? What made them worthy of this singular honor? Well, they didn’t seem to have much else going on. They weren’t too busy, and they didn’t miss Christmas.

Second, the shepherds wouldn’t be disappointed.

A lot of people would have been disappointed.

They wouldn’t be disappointed at first: “Oh a Savior? Wonderful! Oh, that’s great! What’s he going to save us from? Because I’ve got a list as long as your arm. The Roman emperor is taxing us to death. The empire is squashing our freedoms. The economy has been awful. All the jobs are swallowed up. If we ever needed a Savior, it’s now!”

But then, once they actually see the gift? The remarkably unremarkable birthing room, the young peasant mother, the nervous peasant dad, and then a feed trough with a baby in it. Um…That’s the gift? It’s a baby. What does it do? What does it save us from? Our sins, you say? That it?

Many would respond, “How about someone who will save us from a corrupt government? Runaway taxation? A rotten economy? Yet the angel said, “You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21, NIV).

Oh.

But the shepherds wouldn’t have been disappointed! The shepherds see the angels, and they’re like, “Let’s go check it out!” They see the baby, and as the Gospel writer says,

“The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” (Luke 2:20, NIV)


The Christmas Shepherds: “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 shepherds weren’t disappointed, and I believe it had everything to do with four words from the angel (we’ll see the words in a second). For the shepherds weren’t just outside—they were outsiders. Religious leaders regularly looked down their noses at grubby shepherds, lumping them with other irreligious types. Because of their line of work and the hours they kept, shepherds weren’t able to keep a lot of the religious rules that the Pharisees said you had to keep in order to be God’s children. Physically, they were poor, dirty, unspiritual—outsiders in every sense of the word.

So, four words especially would have gotten their attention:

“But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.’” (Luke 2:10, NIV)

“Even me?” Even you.

In fact, especially you! In our day, a lot of people would respond to such news with something like, “Save me from my sins? Um, I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about. I’ve made a few mistakes, but I’m not a sinner, if that’s what you’re implying. Save me from my sins? That’s fairly disappointing—a savior who offers the very thing I don’t need.”

But the shepherds weren’t disappointed.


The Christmas Shepherds: “Physically, they were poor, dirty, and smelly—outsiders in every sense of the word.”


“Even me?” Even you.

“I mean—I’m a sinner!” Even you.

“I’ve done a lot of bad things.” Yeah, He knows. He knows it all.

For all the people. So, the shepherds weren’t disappointed. What about you?

What Do We Really Want?

With how many stars would you rate this Gift?

When it comes down to it, what do you want most? What do you really want out of life? Most honest people would say that what they really want boils down to:

  1. Get more
  2. Feel better

So that’s what we tend to make Christmas all about: Getting more (i.e., more toys, and the older we get, the toys get bigger and more expensive) and feeling better (so we decorate and shop and listen to Christmas music in order to get into that fuzzy, tinselly “Christmas spirit”). Toys and tinsel. Which is all fun and festive, and you’d have to be grinchy to complain about it.

And yet when it comes to the point, if we’re always fixating on getting more and feeling better, it’s easy to see the central point of Christmas and say something like, “Seriously? It’s a baby. What does it do? Saves me from my sins? God waits thousands of years for this Gift of all gifts, and—someone to save us from our sins?”

Hmm. Well, you know I really wanted for Christmas was…what I really could have used was….

And let’s be honest. If God can do anything—and we could choose anything—well, wouldn’t it be more stuff and better feelings? More friends, better looks? That’s what we really could have used, right?


“And let’s be honest. If God can do anything—and we could choose anything—well, wouldn’t it be more stuff and better feelings?”


Everyone else was too busy to go look and so caught up in their pursuits that they might very well have been disappointed if they had gone and looked. Only if you are able to push pause and realize your sinfulness and need for a Savior will you get Christmas. If we can’t honestly pray, “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner,” then the best Christmas will offer each year is toys and tinsel.

Be Still

If, this Christmas, we don’t push pause, we’re going to miss it. We’re going to spend yet another Christmas celebrating Someone we didn’t even invite to the celebration.

Psalm 46:10 (NIV) says, somewhat strangely, “Be still, and know that I am God.” It’s strange because I already know that God is God. Why would I have to be still to know that He is God? I wouldn’t need to push pause in order to grasp such a basic truth, would I?

Actually, yes I do, or I miss it.

Why the shepherds? The shepherds weren’t too busy to see Jesus, and they weren’t disappointed when they saw Him.

And so, do you know what they got? Peace.

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