There were shepherds living in the hills, keeping watch over their flocks by night. Tonight I would like to explore with you what we can learn from the shepherds.
Shepherds are entrusted
with treasure. We hear so much about
shepherds being at the bottom of the social ladder, dirty, and rough, we
sometimes forget that they watched over the sheep, which was the wealth and
treasure of the village. They were
entrusted with the flocks—the food source, the milk source, the source of wool,
the investment that keeps growing. You
wouldn’t entrust your flock with just anyone, but only with those who are
trustworthy and self-sacrificing, strong to lead the flock, knowledgeable about
illnesses and their treatments, willing to go looking for the lost, smart to
keep count and watch for signs of distress or enemies or plants to stay away
from. Shepherds were keeping watch over
the treasure of the village.
On this Christmas
night, they are entrusted with a new treasure. They are told the Good News of
Great joy that a Savior is born in Bethlehem.
They go quickly to see for themselves what has taken place. I’m sure they left a couple of shepherds in
charge of the sheep, left behind, or maybe they went in shifts to see the
baby. And when they had seen him, they
went around sharing this treasure, telling everyone they met about what they
had seen and heard.
Shepherds, like Mary,
know how to ponder. Shepherds spend a
lot of quiet hours, keeping watch, pondering the wonders of the world,
examining creation for signs of life and hope, watching the stars, listening to
night sounds. They have a lot of time
alone with their own thoughts. This is a
little bit out of character for them to have this flurry of activity, and to go
and tell a bunch of people the good news.
We can remember this when we feel a little uncomfortable sharing our
encounters with God and angels and mysteries, to stretch ourselves to be open
about how God has changed our lives. And
we can learn from the shepherds and Mary that pondering and quietly wondering
and hoping are also part of the process.
Shepherds know about
the ordinariness and miracle of birth.
What better people to share this good news with than these folks who
tended the sheep, knew about pregnant waiting, witnessed again and again the
messy, beautiful miracle of new life in the birth of the sheep. So when they are told of the birth of a
newborn king, this isn’t something foreign or frightening, but something they
knew all about. So they went with proper
wonder and reverence for this new life that came into the world in Bethlehem
that night.
Our Good Shepherd was
born that night. The Shepherds were told
first as an indication of what kind of King Jesus would be. Here
they are just outside the city of David, shepherds, just as King David had been
as a boy, which was good training for how to be a king. He would be like the Shepherd in the 23rd
Psalm, leading us to fertile fields, providing the earth to give us life,
leading us beside still waters in our baptism, feeding us in Holy Communion,
healing us with oil, setting a table, overflowing our cup, and preparing a
place for us forever. He would live like
a shepherd, wandering the land, having no place to lay his head.
Later, Jesus shares his
understanding of who he is as the Good Shepherd, laying down his life for the
sheep, protecting the sheep from the wolves, laying at the gate of the sheep’s
pen and gathering and releasing the sheep, and finally going to find that one
sheep that got lost.
Jesus told Peter, “Feed
my sheep.” After Jesus has been crucified and rises from the dead, he tells
Peter 3 times to feed his sheep, Some people say this corresponds with the
three times Peter denies Jesus. Peter is
given some heavy responsibilities to shepherd the people at the end of the
Gospel. And it isn’t just Peter’s job,
but the assignment for all of Jesus’ disciples, including you and me. We have shepherding responsibilities to care
for each other, to feed and heal each other.
Every other year we
hear this same reading and this is the first year I have realized that baby Jesus
is placed in the manger, where the food goes.
We are to feed his sheep. What do
we feed them with? We of course share
our food, but in addition, we feed them with Jesus, the bread of life. Here we are tonight, in Bethlehem, the city
of bread and born in this city of bread is the Bread of Life Jesus, in a
manger, a trough.
On this Christmas Eve,
we can ask ourselves what do we treasure?
What do we ponder? How can we set
aside time for pondering? How can we listen
to what emerges from the pondering and share it with others? What kind of shepherding are we being called
into? How can we notice the signs of
hope around us? How can we share our
story of our encounter with the mysterious, wondrous, life-affirming presence
of God? How can we see in the everyday,
the miracles right before our eyes? What
is being born in our midst?
To us this evening, the
angels are singing the birth announcement in the bells, in the choir, in the
interruptions, in the silences. We are
in the position of the shepherds. We
thought it would be a quiet night—we hoped it would be. Now we are entrusted with this good news,
with this promise. Let us go and see
this new life that is emerging, this hopeful shepherd born in our midst. Let’s look for the signs among the lowly, in
unexpected places, near to us, so ordinary and yet so extraordinary. Let us ponder this mystery, this
blessing. Let this promise open our eyes
to all that is Holy all around us. Let
us ponder What does it mean to hold the promise, to share the promise, to live
the promise of a Savior in the flesh, coming to all people, a treasure beyond
all our expectations.
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