Third Week of Advent - Shepherds
We kicked off the Third week of Advent by presenting our annual Sunday School Christmas pageant during worship. It's always great fun to see the little ones dressed up in their costumes and sharing the Nativity story. The kids all want to be the angels, wise people, Mary and Joseph, and even the donkey and camel (mostly because we have great costumes). We have adorable sheep costumes we put on the toddlers and let them be a part of the story as well. You can imagine what that's like - there is always at least one runaway sheep.
But Shepherds? The shepherds are always a hard sell. No one ever seems that enthusiastic to be a shepherd. This past week it took a lot of convincing to get some certain little ones excited about their part in the story.
Me: "But the shepherds ARE important! They took care of the sheep - and that's a huge job! The angels chose them to tell the Good News about the birth of the Christ child."
First grader: "But all they did was take the sheep, go look at the baby and then they probably went back to the stinky sheep in the stinky field."
True. She has a point.
We don't hear much about the shepherds after their visit to Bethlehem.
(Read the passage about the shepherd in Luke 2: 8-19)
In the scripture, the shepherds hear the announcement from the angels and with "haste" set off to find the baby. Luke says they saw the baby "made known what had been told to them" and all that heard it were amazed. They returned to the fields "glorifying God for all they had heard and seen."
But then, nothing more about the shepherds.
They probably went back to work. We have no idea if they became disciples - or apostles - or spread the Good News to anyone beyond the manger scene.
They probably just went back to the stinky fields with the stinky sheep.
Can you see why this would be a hard sell? They didn't exclaim "Glory to God in the Highest" like the angels, they didn't bring any fancy gifts that we know about, and they didn't get to tell Mary and Joseph that there was no room in the inn. They hardly have any lines in this Christmas pageant at all.
History tell us that shepherding (in addition to what else you might have heard) is one of the oldest professions in the world. And even though I tried to sell being a shepherd as a noble occupation even the children know that shepherds were people with very little influence and were considered in the lower class of society.
So why be a shepherd? And why the heck did Luke even tell this story of the shepherd in his Nativity narrative?
Because shepherds remind us that time and time again, God chooses the least likely people to be part of the story. We learn from the the Bible that God has looked to prostitutes, stutterers, lepers, cheaters, and liars to be leaders. To be loved. To show compassion. To share the Good News of hope and love that we are reminded of with the retelling of the Nativity story every year.
And if God can choose someone like a shepherd - then there is hope for me.
And hope for you.
There is hope for the addict, the inmate, the murderer, the adulterer, the mentally ill
. . . and the over-thinker who puts things she's already done on her "to do" list - just so she can cross them off.
There is hope given to us by God in the form of a human baby that was born, crucified, and resurrected. There is hope because there were shepherds who show us that God loves us - each and everyone of us - no matter who we are.
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