Third Week of Advent – 12/18/2016

WARNING PREACHY…

Luke 2:8-12

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

News that Causes “Great Joy”

The angelic host appeared to the shepherds living in the fields.  The way I understand it, the shepherd was the lowest class of people in Israel.  I am really not sure how to define the concept in terms that Americans can understand without pointing to a social or working class and inadvertently cutting it down.  I guess the best I can do is point to the caste system of India.

The caste system in India is a social ordering.  I am not sure what started it or how people were ordered into it, but everyone in India were part of it.  There are four castes (or segments); the Brahims, the Kshatriya, the Vaishyas, and the Sudras and they are in order of importance from top to bottom.  There was still another caste which was considered ever lower than the bottom of the caste system and the people in this caste of society were considered Untouchables and they were not even considered hirable for anything nor were they considered worth anything more than blight in society.  In the world of the Israelites, the Shepherd were considered the bottom caste, the Sudra at best, and might have even been considered Untouchable, but no matter what they were considered, they were the bottom of the social order.

So the very fact that the angelic host came to the shepherds is a big deal. The birth of Christ was not announced to the Priests (which were the Brahmins), the warriors or city leaders (the Kshatriya), or the skilled laborers (the Vaisyas), but the angels announced to the unskilled shepherds (the Sudras) of the Israelite society the appearance of the Christ and Messiah who is the Savior of all the people.  In this single act, God legitimated and showed the bottom of society as worth more than all the other classes of the Jewish society.

And this is the Good News that causes Great Joy because the Christ Child is for those of us who are on our knees knowing that we are not great but rather recognize that we are in need of a savior.  We are prepared to celebrate the birth of Christ on Christmas Day because he is our redemption from a dark and cruel world that will not give us value, but whom God values by giving us His son who endured the Cross for us all.

Sometimes the higher the position that we hold in society or the more valuable that we consider ourselves can work against us and not allow us to recognize the reason that we should have great joy at the announcement of the child’s coming into our world.  But I pray that we can see ourselves and bend a knee with the shepherd at his birth.

Matthew 25:40

"The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'"