Episodes
Monday Dec 24, 2012
Suddenly... Joy, Shepherds
Monday Dec 24, 2012
Monday Dec 24, 2012
Rev. Dean Snyder
Luke 2:8-20
For the most part, the early Christians were not a highly educated group, not particularly successful, not esteemed.
I like the way The Message translation of the Bible translates the words of the Apostle Paul in First Corinthians when Paul is describing the early followers of Jesus. It says:
Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? (I Cor. 1:26-28)
The first generations of Christians were mostly the nobodies of the world at the time. Christianity grew among slaves and servants and widows and orphans and people who worked with their hands to eek out a living.
During the thirty or forty years between the life of Jesus and the writing of the Gospels, when the early Christians were composing and inventing the wonderful Christmas stories of Jesus’ birth, they wanted someone like themselves in the story.
In Luke, they chose the shepherds. The early Christians who composed the stories that made their way into the Gospels saw themselves in the shepherds.
Being a shepherd had once been an honorable occupation. But in the region of Galilee around Bethlehem, by the time of Jesus, the shepherd farmers had mostly been replaced by agribusinesses. The owners of the sheep farms were no longer those who tended the sheep. The sheep were tended by migrant workers and day laborers.
It was to migrant workers and day laborers that the angels came to bring good news of great joy in Luke’s wonderful Christmas story.
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "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, who is the Messiah, the Lord. (Luke 2:8-11)
It was slaves, servants, widows and orphans, and people who worked with their hands to eke out a living who wrote that story.
Because to them Jesus was the greatest joy in their life. The rest of their lives were hard, humiliating, without glory, without success, without reward, without prestige, but in Jesus’ presence they were rulers and priests. In the community of Jesus followers they were special, each and every one.
The writer of First Peter says to these early Christians:
Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. [Once you were nobody] But [now] you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people. (See I Pet 2:9-10)
On the surface, not many of us gathered here tonight in this church would seem to have much in common with the early Christians or the shepherds. We are educated. We do have impressive careers and resumes. We are successful. We are influential. We have bank accounts and pensions.
But if you look beneath the surface, I wonder if there isn’t a shepherd somewhere in there. I wonder if there isn’t a migrant worker or day laborer or slave or orphan or someone who ekes out their living day to day inside us.
I wonder if there isn’t someone who looks to all the world like a success but who is feeling like a failure inside.
If we could look beneath the surface of things, I wonder if there aren’t within us souls who dread having to go back to work a few days from now because our work has become miserable for us but we feel trapped in it; souls scared to death about diseases in our bodies; souls worried about running out of money in our old age; souls with credit card debt out of control; souls who are despairing about ever finding a partner who will love us; souls still ashamed and angry about our sexual orientation; souls still in a closet; souls being abused by partners or spouses; souls with marriages that feel loveless; souls worried and ashamed about loved ones in prison; souls hurting because of children who will not answer our calls; souls ashamed because we’ve cheated, because we’ve stolen, because we’ve lied, because we’ve pretended to be something we are not, because we’ve been racist, we’ve been sexist, we’ve abused our power, we’ve been violent; souls addicted to alcohol, pornography, gambling, food, and work.
On the surface of things, we look successful, but beneath the surface we may be shepherds and slaves and orphans and widows and prisoners and poor.
I want to say tonight that it is to the part of us beneath the surface that the angels bring good news of great joy. I know it is hard to believe. I am not sure I fully believe it myself. But it is the Christmas story. Jesus is born to certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay.
If we invite Jesus into whatever part of our life where we feel most defeated tonight, most hopeless and helpless, dirty and ashamed, Jesus will come in and bring joy.
Would you bow your heads with me please and be in prayer with me? If any of this prayer fits your life, pray it in your heart with me.
O God, I have something in my life that is blocking my joy. No one else can see it. I hide it from the world. I am ashamed of it. People around me think I am successful and happy but I am not because I have something in my life that is out of control and is blocking my joy.
I ask you to heal me. Show me what I need to do to get joy back into my life. Give me someone in my life I can talk to. Take away my shame.
Let me see the miracle of new life coming into my life this Christmas. I surrender to you what I cannot control. In the name of Christ. Amen.
May you have a blessed Christmas.
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