Blue-Collar Shepherds Check Out the Christ

[ The following is a brief reflection on the shepherds in the Christmas story, as delivered at a Christmas Eve service at my church. ]

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Christmas time and shepherds calls up a picture of poor saps in bathrobes and fake beards looking adoringly at a plastic baby in a fake manger. (Present company excepted.) What I think it should call up instead is admiration for Christianity’s first evangelists and a determination on our part to tell the story of the good news with as much passion and joy as they did.

A few things to note about the story, as told in Luke:

First, they were shepherds. Shepherds were the bluest of blue-collar workers. Shepherding was not an admired occupation. They worked a tough job for minimum wage with no prestige. And yet, these are the guys who get to know first about arguably the most significant event in human history—the birth of the Messiah. The announcement of the Incarnation. Immanuel. God with us. The absolute center—along with the resurrection–of the good news and of human history.

They find–out of nowhere–that they are part of the story God is telling to the world.And so am I and so are you, 2000 years later. Average people—maybe even a little below average in the shepherd’s case—made part of the Greatest Story Ever Told.

Second—they did not at first know what to make of this story. In fact, at first it scared them spitless. I like the King James wording: When the angel appeared to announce the good news, we find “they were sore afraid.” So afraid that it hurt. The Greek word behind the King James “sore” is “megas”—they were MEGA-afraid. And so would be you and I.

Why were they afraid? Because angels are not cute. They are awesome, fearful beings and when people experience one in the Bible, they usually fall face first on the ground. But the shepherds are also afraid because they don’t know what is happening. They’re just minding their lowly business—taking care of sheep in the outdoors at night—and suddenly the sky is filled with an angel and then a “heavenly host”–and everyone is singing like crazy.

A “host” in the Bible is an army. The sky is filled with an ARMY of angels—ready for battle if need be. This will definitely make you 1. sore afraid and 2. wonder what is going on.

For you see, the shepherds had limited knowledge. And so do I. They weren’t scholars or priests. They were simple working class folks. They might have known that a Messiah had been expected for centuries, but they had no reason at all to think it would be tonight, in a small town nearby, or that they were part of the story.

This is the part I most identify with. They have been told something amazing, actually something unbelievable—that the Savior of the world has just appeared not far away and that he is just a baby and, in fact, he is now laying in a wooden trough used to feed farm animals.

They could not have expected any of this, certainly not with these details. It stretched reason and common sense. It must have made them wonder if someone had spiked the stew that night.

Same with me, here in modern times. This good news that has been announced to me—first by people who loved me, and then by my teachers and guides, and over the years here at Hope. How can this story be true? It stretches reason and common sense.

So what did the shepherds do. They said, “Let’s go see.” They tested what they had been told. They went to see if there was in fact a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And God, I believe, invites us to test the story as well. If you are skeptical, don’t take anyone’s word for it. Test the good news in your own life. Taste and see if it is good.

The shepherds tested it, and when they discovered it was true, they became the New Testament’s first evangelists, telling everyone what they heard and saw. That’s what the word ‘evangelium’ means—the good news. The good news that the Christ has come who will reconcile us with God and redeem the world.

And then what do the shepherds do? They go back. Back to their flocks. Back to the everyday world of tending sheep.

But they are changed people. They are not the same people they were when that day began. Now they are “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.” Now they are testifiers, which is to say, they are story tellers. They have a story to tell about what has happened in their lives and what it means for themselves and for others.

And so do you and I. We are average people, like the shepherds; we have been invited into a great story; we do not know everything we would like to know; but we know what we have heard and seen in our own lives, and we are responsible to tell that story, joyfully, to others.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!