Christmas
Morning
December
25, 2015
Luke
2:20
Same
Old Sheep, Same Old
Shepherds
In
the name of the Father and of the
☩
Son
and of the Holy Spirit.
I.
Do
you know what's missing from every Christmas pageant ever? The smell.
Animals smell. Babies smell. People who are around babies and animals
smell. And then the shepherds show up.
Back
in the day you didn't get into shepherding because you liked animals
or the outdoors or not bathing. You got into it because your dad did
it. It wasn't a choice; it was your family's smelly job.
So
these three words are strange,
The
shepherds returned. (Luke 2:20)
II.
God
had sent angels to tell them that His Son was born in Bethlehem.
Thus, the shepherds had wisely and faithfully gone to see Him. We see
their trust in their words to each other,
Let's
go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord
has told us about. (Luke 2:15)
Not
if this thing has happened, but the shepherds went to
see what had happened. When God's messengers speak,
things happen. When the angels told the shepherds, they trusted His
word and went to see.
And
they saw Jesus, who is the Word of God incarnate, in the flesh, there
in the manger.
The
Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His
glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full
of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
And
it came to pass that the Word had eyes and ears and a mouth and a
nose! He's here and has elbows and knees and thumbs!
The
shepherds saw God face-to-face. And then they spread this full-faced
God around Bethlehem.
When
they had seen Him, they spread the word concerning what had been told
them about this Child (Luke 2:17a)
III.
Then
they went back to work. It might have been tempting for them to quit
their shepherding gig since―of all people―God did choose to tell
them about His Son's birth. No other smelly shepherds showed up, or
well-dressed merchants, or kings with gold (the Magi wouldn't show up
for a while).
These
shepherds returned to their same old sheep. Back to the same old
faces, the same old places, the same old smells. They continued their
same old routine, but from then on, I assume that they continued to
speak of hearing and seeing God's Word in the manger while their
sheep wandered around those fields.
Instead
of going where they weren't called, they stayed where God had called
them to work. They didn't go out as self-appointed preachers,
potentially a less smelly line of work. Rather they wisely stayed
where God had already placed them and received God's promise with
joy.
You
know what the shepherd know. The Child is born. He is the Word with
eyes and feet and hands. He is Jesus. He came into the world so that
His eyes would see how even His friends totally abandoned Him. He
came into the world so that His feet and hands would be nailed to a
cross. No smelly shepherds came to save the bloody Good Shepherd, but
Jesus wouldn't have had it any other way. The cross was His job and
His alone. Their job and ours is to speak Christ where you already
are, to the same old faces, to the same old sheep, in the same old
places, whether you enjoy where you are or if it smells.
God
made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so
that in Him we might become the righteousness of God! Amen!
2
Corinthians 5:21
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