Every year at Christmas, Millions of people, from all walks of life, sing ”O Come, All Ye Faithful.” In unison, they collectively beckon the joyful and triumphant to vicariously visit the God in the manger. During this festive advent, representatives from most political parties and practically every vocation will visit a model of Christ’s Nativity. If you were to ask someone to describe the invitation to the original Nativity, you might hear words such as: glorious, spectacular, wonderous, or beautiful. As mesmerizing as the angels must have been, let’s not forget the selectively few invited to that First Christmas.
Excluding Mary and Joseph’s obvious roles, the Christmas caste was an interestingly short list.
Unlike the Wise men, who may have been there or may have come later, Shepherds did not decipher signs or scriptures before searching heaven and earth for Jesus. Shepherds received a divine invitation.
Shepherds were given a heavenly assignment.
Their mission was planned out. God had declared ”you will find”.
Not you might, not you can. You will. When they found Him was determined, where they found Him was determined. Most importantly, was the understanding of who it was they'd found. Christ, The Lord. Emmanuel, God with us, the King of Kings and Lord of lords, but He is also the Alpha and Omega. He who is, who was , and who is to come.
In His infinite wisdom, planning throughout eternity past, God chose shepherds from one nation of peculiar people as the singular profession invited to birth of His only son.
He didn’t choose doctors to heal or attend to them. Neither did he bring lawyers to help them understand or keep the rules. God didn’t enlist guards to protect them. He didn't get an interior decorator to . He didn't hire performers to entertain or dynamic speakers to preach. He didn't invite cool cowboys, He only invited humble shepherds.
Here in the west, many have confused the metaphorical shepherds of the Bible with metaphorical cowboys. The differences aren't subtle. Shepherds lead the flock, and the sheep follow.
Cowboys drive the cattle. They choose a direction for an exciting adventure and head off into the sunset. Occasionally, a stampede happens but a cowboy stays safe in the rear. The chaos leaves a carcass or dozen in the desert, but the drive goes on. At the end of a hard day, Cowboys bed down for the night .
Shepherds are called, not only to feed the sheep, but to watch their sheep. Though the night brings prowling lions, shepherds guard the flock. Sheep, as it turns out, are easily scattered and lost. Christ says, ”Shepherds will leave the ninety-nine to find a stray one. A Good Shepherd will do it even at the cost of his life.” Then He died on a cross to prove it. Shepherding is a dirty, humiliating job society saw as demeaning.
It isn't an obscured, eternal, celestial viewpoint God chooses from. In the most precious moment of history, when the most gracious, wisest, and powerful King this world has ever known, was born, God was orchestrating more than choirs of angles. He has purpose. He gives purpose. He knows exactly who He calls.
Shepherds did not randomly stumble into the presence of God, on that first Christmas. Neither can we randomly find ourselves there today. God must call us, and we must answer.
At the manger, God, as He often does still, brought those society had discarded to come into His presence to worship Him.
1st Corinthians 1
28 He chose the lowly and despised things of the world, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast in His presence.
Despised unto humility, who better than shepherds to announce the birth of the Lamb of God?
2000 years later, despised shepherds are called to carry a message. That message echoes from the Nativity, where the virgin wrapped her newborn in swaddling clothes. Free from the inherited stain of man’s sin, Christ, from the manger, doesn't simply initiate the first Christmas. From this miraculous birth, God certifies the work He is to do at the Cross and validates a defeated grave. Here He qualifies the sacrifice that will redeem believers from a deserved firey torment for the eons of eternity. From here begins the consecrated life lived to lead souls to heaven.
As the sun sets, the cowboys ride, the herds will leave. When the lights taken down, the Nativity set is boxed away for another year, a new song will be playing in the background. The flock will face the temptation to temporarily stifle the marvelous awe found in the truth of the manger's mission, but there will always be a Shepherd, who will face bears in the night, even the grave itself, to carry the news of what began that night in Bethlehem.
May Love and Joy come to you, in knowing The Good News.
Merry Christmas,
Clint
