And there were shepherds living out in the fields near by, 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 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.’
Luke 2:8-12 NIVUK
There are certain jobs that people look down on, even now. Did you know, for example, that this year in our country lots of fruit and vegetables were left to rot in the fields because there was no-one to harvest them? It's a hard job. We British people don't like doing jobs like that. So in previous years our farmers had hired people from Eastern Europe to do it instead. But they haven't been coming because of Covid, so there was no-one who would do the job.
And then there are call centres. I spent a few years working in call centres when I was younger. But lots of people don't like doing it because they don't like how people treat them on the phone.
There are other, really tough jobs, like people who collect our rubbish, that we don't want to do because we have to work in difficult, smelly places. But we depend on the people who do these difficult jobs.
In Jesus' day, it was the same with shepherds. They performed a very important job. Lambs were used in Jewish worship. Wool is a very useful product for clothes. Lamb and mutton are good to eat. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all had sheep. Even their greatest king, David, started out as a shepherd.
But Jewish people did not have too much respect for shepherds.
Why?
Because you didn't need to be clever to do the job. Because at various times of the year, when food for the sheep was hard to find, shepherds would have to roam all over the place, including into the mountains, to find grass for them to eat. They would often have to break the Sabbath rules and walk further than their law allowed. After all, a shepherd earns his livelihood from the sheep. He couldn't let them die from lack of food. Even on the Sabbath.
Uneducated, manual labourers who often broke the Sabbath and who smelled of sheep. This explains why Jewish people did not honour shepherds. Even if they relied on them for wool, food and worship.
So what happened at Christmas is actually quite shocking.
God did not send the angels to experts in the Bible. He didn't send them to the intelligent, educated elite. He didn't even send them to King Herod or the Romans.
No. The first people to receive news of Jesus' birth were a bunch of poorly educated, despised and smelly shepherds, camped on a hillside, likely near a sheep pen.
And this is extraordinary. It really is extraordinary. But why?
Maybe it's because of how the rich, intelligent, educated elite were reacting to God. During the Christmas story, we see the experts in the law provide King Herod with the information he needs to kill all the baby boys in the town of Bethlehem. As Jesus grows up, we find many people who ought to know better struggle to explain what Jesus is saying and doing, do their best to dismiss him as a fraud and to slander his teaching. In fact, it's the religious leaders who do their very best to try and kill Him.
Yet these shepherds are given a simple message:
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.’
Luke 2:11-12 NIVUK
And do you know what they do? They drop everything. They leave their sheep in the pen. They find the stable where Jesus was born. And they worship Him.
We all have something to learn from this. We live in times when people from our country like to think they're so advanced and clever. They love making things more complicated - far more complicated than they need to be. But these simple, smelly shepherds get something right that many of us get wrong. The one thing we need to do most of all is worship Jesus. As Jesus Himself said:
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Matthew 6:33 NIVUK
And do you know what's really special? These simple, uneducated men became the world's first missionaries and preachers:
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.
Luke 2:17-18 NIVUK
Think about that for a second. No big certificates or diplomas. No training. No special knowledge. They just had one thing: they'd met with Jesus. And that's all it takes.
These shepherds were outsiders. They were the type of people that other people wouldn't want to talk to. But all of a sudden, and in really dangerous times, these men have a story to tell. And people want to listen to them. The outsiders become the insiders, because of Jesus.
Having seen Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and the shepherds, our last group of people are THE WISE MEN.
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