The Experience of the Shepherds

Luke 2; 1-20

12th December 2004

My prize for the most tasteless thing this Christmas goes
to the Manchester United Advent Calendar:
open up the little windows and you will se the stars,
Alex Ferguson, Roy Keane and so on.
It beats all the outdoor lights with their electric Santas and reindeer.
In fact I could see myself spending a hundred euro or so on outside lights.
I like to see them. Lights hanging in a bare tree cheer me up on a dark night
and even the electric Santas and the reindeer make me smile.

But there wasn't much smiling or groaning at bad taste at the first Christmas.
We can only imagine Mary's fear and pain and embarrassment and fatigue:
a three day journey from Nazareth,
the anxiety of looking for a safe place for the night.
Can you hear her giving out to Joseph for not booking ahead,
and we can imagine her even giving out to God
as she watched her little baby nestling on the straw.
Was this what the angel promised? This squalour, this obscurity?

But God had not forgotten his faithful servant, as we shall soon see.

The shepherds didn't smile either
when an angel of the Lord appeared to them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them
They were terrified.
They weren't expecting an angel
they may have thought themselves the last people in Israel
to have an angel speak to them.
Shepherds were on the margins, they didn't worship properly
they were unclean in more than one sense because of their job.
But it was around them that the glory of the Lord shone
not on Herod in his palace
not on the high priest in the temple
not on Caesar Augustus and his officials doing the census.


These humble shepherds found themselves
in the front row of a glimpse of heaven.
When it says that the glory of the Lord shone around them
it means that for a moment they were in the presence of God as he really is
and of course it was an awesome, terrifying moment.
Every time in the Bible when the curtain is drawn back
and people see even something of God's true nature
like the shepherds they are terrified.
It has to be so: most of the time most of us in regard to God
treat him like electricity.
It's a power that's always there and we take it for granted
but it's a power to be treated with great care and respect

Warnings are made to these days to people
to be so careful when putting up their electric Santas
and use a qualified electrician.
If we knew even a hundredth of what God is really like
if his glory shone around us
would we treat him in the casual ways that we do?

But the gospel the good news that the angel brings
is like an earthing connexion
which makes the fearsome power of electricity safe and beneficial for us.
The angel tells the shepherds that in a particular place and time
a baby is born
who will bring the power of God to bear on the needs of the people.

'Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you;
he is Christ the Lord.
This will be a sign to you:
You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." '

There it is. The very thing which may have embarrassed and humiliated Mary
having to lay her baby in a manger
is the very thing which will help the shepherds find them.
As I said last week, the extraordinary meets the ordinary:
the Son of God is laid down to sleep on straw.
and a loving God provides that the shepherds will find the baby quickly
and that Mary and Joseph will get the reassurance they would need.
Can you get more down to earth than that?
How should you and I respond?

1 EXPECT TO SEE GOD IN THE EVERYDAY
It is well said
that Jesus came to save the least, the lost, the last and the lowest.
This down to earth story means that there is no part of our experience
where God is not concerned,
nothing that touches us where he is not real and relevant.
Even people who don't bother much with Christian things
sense that at this season.
A journalist rang me the other day to ask what I thought was the reason
people came to church at Christmas time who didn't come the rest of the year.
Apart from family reasons, or memories of childhood, I said the answer is
that people want to connect with God somehow and they find they can do that
through the simplicity and the ordinariness of the Christmas story.
God is accessible. He came down to earth from heaven.
Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.
It is a pity that many of those folk don't come back after Christmas
to take this further
but you and I who do come the rest of the year
how do we respond?
Do you feel afraid? Insignificant? Confused?
The God who touched the lives of Mary and the shepherds
amid their fears and sense of not counting for much
can touch our lives too, if we will let him ...
When you are worried, when you are afraid, when you are confused,
when you feel no peace with God, no certainty of heaven, when you despair.
When your mind is full of stuff you know should have no place there,
Like jealousy and wrong desire and resentment
Then remember what Christmas really means,
what this account of Mary and the shepherds shows:
God is in touch. The mighty holy eternal; God has come down to earth
and there is nothing outside his concern or his control
nothing too small or too sinful or too ordinary


2 DON'T SMILE AT CHRISTMAS, REJOICE!

What I mean here is not that we are glum and gloomy at Christmas
taking the attitude of Scrooge in "Christmas Carol'
We should smile at the outdoor lights, even the hideous ones.
We should enjoy the delight and wonder of children opening their presents.
We may even laugh at the comic specials on television.
But deeper than all that pleasure at Christmas
should be the joy that the angel army and the shepherds expressed.

Electric Santas make me smile
the good news of the shepherds gives me joy

You see this great company of the heavenly host
isn't like a huge crowd of spectators singing their songs of support.
This was an army, God's powerful agents -
you can read about them in the Old Testament

(2 Samuel 5.24 2 Kings 6.8-17)

God could have acted like the mighty emperor Augustus
whose soldiers would have ensured that everybody would go to be taxed
to compel obedience, demand his dues, to destroy his enemies.
But that is not the way in which God will save.
God sends a baby, and tells his army to sing
"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favour rests."
The angels praised God
and the shepherds praised God

Lord, give us your joy at your power come down to earth in ordinary people
like Mary, like the shepherds, like us.

People were amazed at the news the shepherds brought
but Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart
so may we go beyond the wonder and the excitement and the smiles
and the fancy lights of Christmas these days
and may we praise you with the shepherds and the angels
think about you deeply with Mary
and see you as fully real and relevant .
May we too be as simple people who hear the good news
and follow through to meet Jesus and adore him this Christmas