The Shepherds

December 24, 2023 – Christmas Eve 

Luke 2:1-20

Pastor Mike

“Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior” (Luke 2:11).

Can you imagine something happening in our world today that would be good news for all people? So much of our world is designed to be divided, what is good for one person or group always seems to come at the expense of someone else, and the question everything seems to boil down to is ‘whose side are you on?’ This nation or that nation, this party or that party, a booming economy or a livable planet. This is the story we are born in, and which wants our participation. What breaking news report, what mass notification causing all our phones to leap to life, could possibly bear a message that would fill all people everywhere with great joy?

The Bible dares to claim that it is possible. The angels dare to announce what to us seems impossible. They hold before us another, better story: a Savior, born to you this very day. And to really hear it let us place ourselves among those who first received the angelic proclamation, those shepherds living out of doors, working the night shift. 

Part 1:

How many folks here set up a nativity scene in your home every year?

Nativities are wonderful, they bring together all the elements of the different Christmas stories from the Gospels into a composite picture that is rich and joyful: the Holy Family, angels, shepherds, Magi, animals. They’re a great way to introduce the Christmas story to kids and to make things visual, not just verbal. Roger and Donna Boe have nativities from all over the world that adorn their home in December. Lana Gribas makes nativities, and this year made some midwives to introduce into the scene, local Bethlehem women who likely would’ve leapt into action to help Mary deliver her baby. So cool.

For as wonderful as they are, nativities collapse the chronology of the biblical stories, and for tonight I want to separate some things out. Take, for example, the sky filling up with angels, the heavens alive with song, the glory shining all around and dispersing the darkness. That was not a moment that all the characters of Christmas experienced, and it didn’t even happen in town or over the manger.

No, it happened outside the town, in the field, in the night, to those who were awake when no one else was because they had to be. It came to those who, because of their social class and family of origin, their desperation or, who knows, their disillusionment with the life of the city, had the night watch over the animals. They were awake in the darkness, and God was thinking about them. They were on the fringes of their community, but they were at the center of God’s concern. It is difficult for those who are awake all night to encounter God in the ways the rest of us do, but God found a way to them.

When you are awake in the dark, God is thinking about you. When you have drifted to the fringes of your community and your sense of self and can hardly remember what “ordinary” life is like, you remain at the center of God’s concern.

 Have you ever been awake in the night? By a sick bed or a death bed, nursing a child, or waiting up for someone to come home? Working a night shift, homesick, or afflicted for some inexplicable reason with insomnia? We can take the night figuratively, too. Sometimes the darkness becomes our native terrain in long seasons of grief or our depression.

  For you, the angel says. For you.

  As the Gospel of John tells us,

The light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness can never extinguish it.

And as the Psalm says:

I could ask the darkness to hide me

and the light around me to become night—

but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.

To you the night shines as bright as day.

Let’s take another look at this nativity. Here we have the three wise men, the Magi from the East, who elevate the scene with their royalty, their strange and exotic attire, their gifts of gold and spice. But the Magi did not come to the manger, they came to Mary & Joseph’s house. And they did not appear the night of Jesus’ birth but when Jesus was nearly two years old. On that first Christmas night, they were just catching sight of the star, and preparing to set off on their journey. So, if y’all will permit it, I’m going to move them over here for a moment.

As you can see, the scene is growing bare and ordinary. Just a mother and father with their newborn baby, awake in the dark, alone with their thoughts. Not lavished as royalty, not illuminated by glory, just… awake, exhausted from labor, feeling that indescribable mixture of ecstasy and terror at holding a newborn child. The night could’ve so easily gone unmarked. Their midnight vigil could so easily have grown lonesome as the hours crept on.

But all of a sudden, barreling into town come the shepherds. They decided to go and see for themselves, to pass on the news that the angels passed on to them, that this is no ordinary baby but the Savior of the world. And it took courage! Courage to believe that God was at work in the night. Courage for men toughened by life out of doors to go shower praise upon a mother and her child. Courage to come back into the town, to trust that God had really told them – of all people – something true. But the angels had told them to not be afraid, and they went unafraid. To share their joy with others who, for their own reasons, were awake that same night.

That same night!

Awake working, awake nursing, awake grieving, awake keeping vigil – all of us, at one point or another, whether in spirit or in body, spend time on night watch. When that darkness comes, we are not alone in it. God breaks through to us, and God helps us to break through to one another.

Is this not the Church?

Is this not the community of creative love that God has been stitching together since that first Christmas night?

Ordinary people gathered together to illuminate the night. Ordinary people who confirm the work of salvation in one another and who magnify one another’s joy. Ordinary people who stop living the lie that all is divided, the lie that our nights are ours to endure alone. Ordinary people who enter a new story and come to meet each another where Christ is.

        If you are in the dark tonight, God has given himself for you.

        If you are in the dark tonight, God has people for you, people to go to, people to receive.

        May we rejoice at the love God has for us, and may we love more creatively, resiliently, gladly than we ever loved before. Amen.