If we have an important message to get out to others, who are we going to give that task to? Since it is an important message, we are going to want the best, most reliable messenger. God had a very important message that He wanted others to know, and our Scripture shows to whom He entrusted this news, to get it to others.
The Christmas holiday and season has recently passed, and during that time many of us have read the Nativity story from the Gospel of Luke. In Luke’s Gospel we read of how Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and laid in a manger, as there were no available rooms in the local inn. In the meantime that evening, in the fields outside of the village of Bethlehem, there were shepherds watching over their flocks (Luke 2:8-12). We all know the account, that angels appear to the shepherds, telling them that the Messiah has been born, and they would find Him lying in a manger.
Jesus is the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, who came to earth to redeem mankind from sin. His birth is very important news. The angels cannot hold back their praises. So who does God send the angels to, to bring this glorious message? Since we have heard this Nativity account dozens of times, probably from our early childhood, we might not think anything unusual about the fact that the shepherds were the ones that the angels told. It makes such a nice scene for Christmas cards!
However, shepherds were among the lowest groups of people in society at the time of Jesus’ birth. Beggars, lepers, and prostitutes were probably the only ones lower down society’s ladder. It seems to have been somewhat forgotten that Israel’s greatest and most loved and revered king, King David, was a shepherd boy in his youth. Now shepherds were a lowly group. They were often illiterate and uneducated. They spent a large part of their life out in the fields with their flocks, even sleeping nearby. Without the opportunities to bathe regularly, they would have smelled like one who spent their life with animals. Proper society generally avoided much contact with these men.
As we read in the Gospel, these were the people that God chose, of all people, to send the angels to, bringing the first news that the Messiah had been born. He didn’t send the angels to the High Priest, the Sanhedrin, or to anyone else who lived and worked in the Temple. God didn’t send the angels to any of the learned scribes or Pharisees. He didn’t even send them to any of the “respectable” working folk in town. God chose some of the lowliest people to bring the first message of Jesus to.
God often uses ordinary people, and unlikely candidates to do special work for Him. When Jesus chose His twelve apostles, He didn’t go to the universities to look for His men. Several of the apostles were fishermen, a respectable, but not prestigious occupation. One was even a despised tax collector. God used those men to bring the message of Jesus to the world, and He chose the lowly shepherds to be the first to witness to and about Jesus’ birth. As believers, we should never be ones to look down on anyone, thinking they are beneath us. God is not a snob, and we certainly shouldn’t be either!
When the angels brought the shepherds the message of the birth of Jesus, they told them that they would find the baby lying in a manger. Then after a chorus of praise to God, the angels left. Now the shepherds had to make a choice, a decision. Would they leave their flocks for a while to search out the newborn Messiah, or would they stay? Were they going to go and see if what the angel said was true? They chose to act on what they heard. They moved in faith, for they believed what the Lord had said through His messengers.
What about us? We have heard the Gospel, God’s Good News. Are we going to just sit tight, and stay by “our flock”? Or are we going to take a risk and go out, and do as the shepherds did, making the news widely known? (vs. 17-18). When the shepherds heard the Good News about the Messiah, they couldn’t keep it to themselves. They hurried to bring the news to others. They took that risk, and told everyone they could, even though they were not a well-liked group. People may laugh at us, or shake their heads, thinking we’re fanatics or crazy, just as some may have done to the shepherds. We’ve been given fabulous, wonderful news. Let’s not keep it to ourselves, but let our world know, as well!
No comments:
Post a Comment