Isaiah 7:10-16                                                   Why Shepherds? Why Us

Luke 2: 1-20                                                              December 19, 2004

              And there were shepherds . . . shepherds . . . have you ever wondered why God chose shepherds to be the central visitors in the Christmas Story? Why not princes or politicians or a good publicist, people who could use their power and position to spread the word. But God's chose shepherds, shepherds

             One can almost overhear the conversation which took place that day between God and Gabriel.

             'Okay, O Great One, we are ready. The angelic host has been practising its glorias for centuries, the planets are all aligned for the Bethlehem star to shine, Mary and Joseph have undergone dream analysis, have appropriately interpreted their evening visions and understand their role and there is clean hay in the manger, so let's get on with it! Whom shall we tell first?'

             'Well Gabe', says God, 'see those people down there, those who are working in the fields night after night. Tell them. Lighten up their world this night.'

             'Excuse me, Most Holy One, but do you know what you are doing? You are sending the One for whom the world has pined and long awaited . . . the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, the Saviour, the Reflection of You, and you want us to tell them? Are you losing it O Omnipotent One?'

            'Gabriel.'

             'Sorry God, but I don't understand. Why shepherds?'

            There was a time when shepherding was a noble profession. Many of Israel's great leaders, Moses, David, began as shepherds. Moses went from leading the flocks to leading the people out of Egypt and to the promised land.

Shepherd-boy David not only used his shepherding skills and trusty sling shot to kill Goliath and defeat the Philistines, but with those same skills, became Israel's greatest king. Ezekiel referred to God as the shepherd of Israel and even Jesus picked up on this ancient analogy when he said, 'I am the good shepherd and you are my sheep.' But, times had changed by Jesus' birth. Shaun Dyer writes

           We need to understand some things about shepherds

           in those days. In the middle eastern culture at that time,

           many shepherds were either slaves of wealthy

          families who hired them to care for their herds of

         sheep or they were gypsy-like vagabonds travelling

         from region to region selling their sheep. Either way,

        shepherds in those days were barely noticeable, rarely

        loved and largely outcastes. In fact, many were highly

        suspicious of shepherds, the common stereotype thrown

       around was that there were really thieves and should not be

       trusted. That is why, most often, shepherds rarely

       ventured into town.

         'O Majestic One, can't we go and tell the political leaders, the pontificating preachers, or at least the pious believers? Can't we go and tell people who really matter?'

         'But Gabriel', answered God, 'stick with me, read my book, watch this baby grow and then perhaps you will see that shepherds really do matter to me and so too do others people often turn aside. I will have fishermen and tax collectors follow me while the religious leaders will look the other way. I will lift up the lowly and bring down the mighty. I will have women first to arrive on resurrection day, but that is another story. Watch Gabriel, watch and learn what is really important to me. Now go, you and your host, and do what you are told.'

         So Luke writes

Then an angel of the Lord stood before the shepherds,

and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they

were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid;

for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all

the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a

Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. And suddenly there

was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising

God and saying,"Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on

earth peace among those whom he favours!"

            'Yes go to the shepherds, for they will know how to respond.'

            Why were the shepherds more ready to visit the manger that evening than the residents of Bethlehem? Why is it that the star which shone overhead was missed by those closest to it? Was it perhaps that they never looked up?

          Shepherds, abiding in the fields, they were trained and accustomed to looking into the evening sky. They knew the star formations and the brightness of the moon, the significance of the cloud cover. They could predict the weather by the direction of the winds and could recognize when things were different. They had the time. They made time to gaze at the wonder of the galaxies and majesty of the evening sky, to see the natural, to anticipate the supernatural.

          How good are we at watching, at seeing that which is right before us? For example, how many of you can describe what the person who welcomed you here today, our greeter Hilde, was wearing? What colour were her shoes? You were less than a foot away from them. What banner hung at the front of our church just prior to Advent? Do you remember? What were the first words I said this morning? Can you recall?

          You see, it is possible to look but never fully see, to hear but never truly listen. Tomorrow some of us will be gathering in Bethany Baptist Church to remember and celebrate the life of Cass Umbach. Cassandra was a member of this church and she shared her life, her love and her laughter with many of us. For the past two years, Cass was in hospital, first the Civic and more latterly at St. Vincents. Cass was legally blind but whenever I walked into her heavily trafficked hospital room, she would say, 'hello Bill'. I always marvelled at this and once asked how she always knew when it was me?

          She smiled and replied, 'I recognized your footsteps'.

         Cass had trained herself to see that which we, with clear vision often miss, to hear that which we, with perfect hearing cannot hear. She trained herself to be alert, to listen for the footsteps of those around her and even for the footsteps of God.

          Scripture depicts an ever-present God but it is a God who responds to our knocking, our seeking, our asking. It is not that God isn't always present for us. It is that often we are not always present for God. Paying taxes and buying gifts, planning dinners and coordinating events encroach on our angel gazing time and we can miss that which is before us. Perhaps we can learn from another one of our Emmanuel saints who when I asked her about her macular degeneration, she said to me, well my outer vision isn't very good but my insight is still in tact! The shepherds had trained themselves to see, to look up to the angelic chorus and to hear the footsteps of God. Can we?

         Perhaps another reason why God chose shepherds is because God knew they would go to the manger.

        Listen again to the Gospel writer

When the angels had left them and gone into

heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go

now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place,

which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with

haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in

the manger.

        The shepherds were unhindered. They owned little, had no agendas, no social obligations, indeed they didn't even have to register for the census which brought Mary & Joseph to Bethlehem for they were not considered as people to counted in the Roman tally. They were insignificant.

        I think you will agree that this sort of freedom is missing today, especially in the western culture. We live our lives so intricately connected to the world that spontaneous responses to God's call are difficult to comprehend. We live by our schedules and this is perhaps never so evident than during the Christmas season. If the angels spoke to us today, we might have to book the manger visit next Tuesday at 4:00pm. So, whereas the shepherds could spontaneously leave their fields, perhaps we need arrange some times for planned spontaneity in out lives - times to pull back, times to look up, times to reminisce Christmases past with those whom we love, times to travel the distance, physically, emotionally spiritually, to kneel at the manger, for it won't happen unless we consciously make the effort to fit it in!

         And finally, there is a lovely postscript to the story. It is found in verse 20

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God

for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

       You know, the fact that they did return to their fields says something really important about Jesus that perhaps we rarely think about. Jesus did not come to overthrow Rome as some desired, to re-establish the temple as some sought or even to recruit professional disciples and call them ministers as some have become. Rather, he came to share God's love, 'for unto us is born a saviour' and to share a faith that could go with us and God who will walk beside us at all times, whether we are mending fishing nets or tending sheep, whether we are civil-servants with the Government or retailing at the corner store. The shepherds went back to the same fields from whence they came, but they did not go back as the same people as when they left. They were able to glorify and praise God for all that they had heard and seen. They were able to take this supernatural moment into their natural reality. They could go back to their fields knowing that they were loved, were important, were significant, indeed were blessed by God.

         'So Gabriel, that is why I choose shepherds . . . because the shepherds will understand the significance of looking up to the heavenly host, looking out that they might journey to the manger side and looking in that this experience might shape and form them long after that their Christmas is over. I chose shepherds because they understood. Do people still understand today?