Luke 2:8-21
You can be seated. Our reading
from God’s word today is from Luke chapter two, verses eight
through 21. Over the last several weeks,
we have looked at the different characters of Christmas. I believe
we looked at Zachariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist.
We looked at Mary and Joseph. We’ve looked at the angels and
we looked last week at Herod. Last evening, we took a look
at Jesus. the Savior, the Christ child.
Today, we’ll look at the shepherds, next week, the wise men, and
in two weeks, Anna in the temple, as well as Simeon. And so we
will have made our way, I guess, after January the 8th, through
all the major Christmas characters, their look on Christmas, their
response to the revelation of Jesus Christ. And I hope these
encourage us all to see these different glimpses of God’s work
at Christmas. Before we read God’s word, let’s
do pray together. Lord, help us to hear and believe
and to see the goodness of the gospel. Unstop our ears, soften
our hearts and make us willing and ready to receive your word,
to lay it up in our hearts and to put it into practice in our
lives. This we ask in the name of Christ, amen. So Luke chapter
two, beginning at verse eight, And in the same region there
were shepherds, out in the field keeping watch over their flock
by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared
to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they
were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, Fear
not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will
be for all the people. For unto you is born this day
in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this
will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped
in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly there
was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising
God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace
among those with whom he is pleased. When the angels went away from
them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go
over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which
the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste and
found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when
they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told
them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered
at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these
things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God for all they had seen and heard as
it had been told them. Amen. This is the word of the
living God. A little over a hundred years
ago in the country of Wales, there was what is known. There were several of them, but
this is the big one. They call it the Welsh revival. And it shows us as we read about
its history that God comes into the world to save all sorts of
people. Part of the blessing of the Welsh
revival is it went through what we might call in our day the
blue collar crowd. In fact, so many miners were
converted that after their conversion, the mules in the mines did not
know how to work because they were accustomed to being kicked
and cussed at. And after so many of these workers
came to faith in Jesus, they no longer kicked and cussed,
but they used normal, regular, everyday, I guess, humane and
sane language cleansed by the Spirit. And so it’s an interesting
set of history to read about. And it’s not much different,
I think, than what we see in our passage. The announcement
of the birth of Jesus doesn’t go to the palace. The announcement
of the birth of Jesus doesn’t go to Rome. The announcement
of the birth of Jesus doesn’t go to the scribes and to the
Pharisees in the temple. Now it comes to what we might
call the blue collar guys. It comes to the shepherds. And
I know over the years of Christmas sermons and messages and readings,
you’ve heard all the business of the shepherds. They were outcast.
They were men who probably didn’t smell good, didn’t look good,
didn’t, well, they didn’t act good, we might say. And so they
were the outcasts. They were in Jewish terms considered
ceremonially unclean. Nevertheless, this is who God
appears to on the night of Jesus’ birth. And he comes to them in
quite an amazing way. And it raises this question in
my mind, and I want to ask it of you. Where were you in life
when the clarity of who Jesus is, And it became crystal clear
to you what Jesus had done for you. Where were you when that
took place in your life? I can remember the day, the place,
the setting. I can remember the words that
were being said. And I can remember when my heart
was stirred to know of Jesus, all that he is and all that he
has done. And this question is raised here in this passage because
this is a moment in time where these shepherds would never be
the same. Imagine, if you will, their life.
They were out in the cold, out in the dark. They didn’t have
their phones to look at. They didn’t have things to help
them pass the time. It was probably a group of them
hovered around a fire. They were probably singing that
good country song. How does it go? Work, work, work,
day after day, 50 hour week, 40 hour pay. They were probably
having that sort of mindset. Bear with me a moment and maybe
forgive a little sanctified wondering. I kind of wonder if they knew
a little more than they maybe had in their mind and heart.
I mean, after all, these were shepherds. And living in the
culture and the society in which they were brought up and raised,
they had to know because the Jewish faith was a generational
faith passed down by word of mouth, they had to know something
of the themes that God had painted and presented to them and the
importance of the shepherd. After all, King David was a shepherd
from the very hills where they were serving as shepherds. King
David, the great shepherd of Israel, was pulled from his sheep
tending to become king over Israel. You read through the prophecies
and the books of the Bible, shepherding was quite important for understanding
how God tended his flock, which was Israel, a flock he had rescued
from out of the world and brought into the promised land and promised
to give them green pastures if they followed and obeyed him. There’s all kinds of themes and
messages in the Old Testament of good shepherds, bad shepherds,
false shepherds. And so you have to imagine that
they knew something of this. But I think more importantly,
they had to know because of their close proximity to the city of
Jerusalem, their closeness to the great need for sheep, for
lambs, for in the Old Testament economy, Under the the laws of
ancient Israel, under the the the defined practices of worship,
lots of sheep, lots of lambs went to the city of Jerusalem
and they went up to the temple and to the altar where they were
sacrificed before Almighty God as an atonement for sin. They
had to know in some sense where their sheep were going, where
their product was headed. And so when the announcement
came to them that a savior had been born, you have to wonder,
did they know this was the final lamb of God? This, in a sense,
would be putting them out of business, except for maybe food
and wool and clothing. This would put them out of business
for the lamb had been born. The lamb that the book of Revelation
tells us had been slain before the foundation of the world.
to take away the sins of the people. Well, those are things
we can wonder about. Those are things we can ponder.
Those are things that we can, in a sanctified way, suspect
may possibly be true of these shepherds. But there are three
things we do know are true from this passage. We know first of
their fear. When an angel of the Lord appeared
to them, in the darkness of the night. Now you remember they
don’t have Walmart parking lots with all the artificial lights.
You know, they don’t have city street lamps. They don’t have
much in the way of artificial light. No, when it got dark,
it got dark except for the natural constellations that appeared
if there were no clouds. And so when an angel of the Lord
appeared to them, we have to think back to other times in
the scripture where the angel of the Lord appeared to people
and their fear. That’s exactly what happened
to these shepherds. The angel of the Lord appeared
to them and they were to quote, uh, is it who reads it in the
Charlie Brown story? Is it Linus? I love the King
James. They were sore, afraid. We might say they were shaking
in their boots. Uh, we might say they were, they were undone. And that’s a proper response
to the presence of Almighty God. When God sends his angel, he
sends his presence, he sends his emissary, he sends his ambassador. And it’s as if the light of the
glory of the heavenly realm comes down to earth. And these shepherds
doing ordinary work on an ordinary night have this extraordinary
experience. The presence of God Almighty
comes to them. The great light. the greatness
of this being. We remember that God made man
in his image, but he made angels in a splendid way. Angels are
at the presence of God. They surround his throne of glory.
They worship him, but they do his bidding. You know, we have,
we have kind of cheapened. I don’t know if that’s the right
word. We have, We have a low view of angels these days. Um,
won’t get into that cause don’t want to offend anybody on Christmas
day, but we just, we just have a low, bad view of angels. Uh,
if you ever bump into an angel, you’ll, you’ll know it. Um, and,
and, and, and you’ll be terrified and you’ll know something of
the presence of almighty God. And that’s exactly what appeared,
uh, to the shepherds. God had an important announcement
to make. And so he sends the angel of the Lord. He sends one
directly from his presence to say unto you is born this day
in the city of David, Christ the Lord. I bring you good news,
good tidings of great joy. This was the most important announcement
that could ever be made. These angels, the same ones that
appeared to Abraham and told him that in the next year he
and his wife would bear a son, the same angels that appeared
to Zechariah in the temple and to
Joseph in his chambers and to Mary and told them of the coming
of the Christ child, these angels appear to the shepherds. And
while this one angel comes and makes this announcement, all
of a sudden the whole host of heaven appears and sings or says,
we don’t know which, glory to God in the highest, peace on
earth. May it rest on those upon whom
God gives favor. We remember the angel of God. We remember the army of host
appearing in other places. Think back to that Old Testament
passage where I think it was the Assyrians had surrounded
the Israelites and Elijah, the old prophet, sees the host on
the mountains. And the young man that’s with
him is, well, he’s scared just like these shepherds shaking
in his boots. And God says, Lord, open his
eyes that he may see. And he sees the army of God and
says, there is more of us than there are of them. God brings
this great host into the sky of the fields of Bethlehem to
announce to these shepherds. And their response is one of
fear. Their response is to tremble, it’s to shake at the presence
of almighty God. That’s something we have lost
these days. Some of you know, a couple months
back, I went to a little preaching conference and we went through
all the how to’s and the what’s to do’s and the what not to do’s.
And all that was great. But the one thing that was said
to us by our teacher was this. He says, if you as a preacher
have lost the fear of God. It doesn’t matter your technique
or your skills or your abilities, but if you’ve lost the fear of
God, and I think that could be said of Christians these days,
if we’ve lost the fear of God, we need to somehow gain it back.
For we need to fear, which means to reverence who God is, his
greatness, his splendor, his majesty, his eternity, his desires,
his love, his work. and his kindness and mercy to
us and his own son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the first
response of these shepherds to fear God and to even fear him
as the judge of the world, but to know that he has brought a
way for men and women and boys and girls to come to salvation
through his own son who was just born that night. Well, the second
response of the shepherds is one of worship. Now, in a sense,
I’m speaking to the choir, because a lot of you came out on a cold
night last night, Christmas Eve, and now you’re back out on Sunday
morning when most of the world is not in church. What a strange
phenomenon. I don’t know if you’ve seen all
the internet arguments I read in certain circles, and there’s
been a raging argument. I think it happened four years
ago as well. I think it’s maybe 11 years before
Christmas falls on a Sunday again. You know, but our view is it’s
Sunday, it’s the Lord’s day, it’s the day of worship. And it’s
a fitting response to the birth of Jesus Christ. It’s a fitting
response to God’s revelation of his son, the Savior. And so
the shepherds say, let us go and see what the Lord has made
known to us through these angels. And it says they went with haste.
You know, a lot of times our weekly schedule, there’s things
we go to quickly. We don’t mind quickly getting
to a ball game or to the shopping center or to other events. But
why is it we drag to church as if serving God is so difficult? But the shepherds give us a great
example. They made haste. Their hearts were so stirred
by the presence of God. Their hearts were so moved by
the message of salvation. I mean, I guess they had to draw
straws and leave somebody behind. I don’t know how all that worked
out. We won’t think too much on that, but they made haste
to the presence of the birth of this savior and they made
known to them. That’s the third thing in this
passage. They they tell they make known
the saying that was told them. Mary, it says, treasured all
this up, pondered in our hearts. And then it speaks of the shepherds
leaving, glorifying God. Lives changed forever because
of the presence of God and this wonderful divine announcement. Back to the question from a few
moments ago. Where were you when Jesus was
made clear to you? Or maybe he’s not been made clear
to you until today. And it’s my prayer that you have
a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, the savior of the world,
the lamb, the spotless lamb who came to die for sinners. It’s
amazing these shepherds, Got to go and see the birth of the
great lamb of God. And it’s my prayer today that
you have a saving relationship with him by faith. You believe
him to be the son of God, the savior of sinners, the lamb of
God who can take away the sins of the world, even your own sins. Let’s do pray together. Our great
God, we thank you for your entrance into the world. And we thank
you that you have made yourself known to simple ones as ourselves. We are not sophisticated or complicated
people, but our lives are so complicated by sin and misery.
And we thank you that your son, the Lord Jesus, has come to make
us new and to make us whole and to make us what we ought to have
been, but what was broken and bruised and bent by sin. And we thank you for Jesus, the
second Adam, the great lamb of God who takes away our sins,
but also gives us a whole life. We thank you and bless you for
all that he is and all that he has done and pray that you would
add these to these words, your great blessing. We pray now in
Christ’s name. Amen.