The Significant Shepherds!
Luke 2: 8-20

Christmas is a time for thinking about our favorite people.
We honor them with our time, with our words of kindness and appreciation, and with cards and gifts.
When you think of the Christmas story, who would you list as your favorite people?

There is no question that the first favorite person would be the baby Jesus.
The tenderness and innocence of the baby Jesus draw us like a magnet to the manger and rightly so.
Of course there would be Mary, chosen by God, to give birth to the Messiah.
And then the faithfulness of Joseph also attracts us.

Do you remember the story of the little boy in Sunday school,
when asked by his teacher to draw a picture of the Nativity scene
including all three of these, plus one whom the Bible did not include.

So the little boy took his crayons and drew an airplane with a man, lady, and baby in the back of the plane
and another man in the cockpit area.

When asked about the meaning of the picture, the boy replied, "This is Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus
on the flight to Egypt."

The teacher asked, "But who is the man in the front of the plane?"

"Oh," said the boy, "that is Pontius the Pilate."

While we might correctly omit Pilate from the birth narrative, we would err by failing to consider the presence
of the shepherds at that first Christmas.
How many of us would consider the shepherds to be important personalities that significant night in Bethlehem?
Yet, in reality, the shepherds play special roles that may challenge us today.

By examining the roles of the shepherds in the Christmas story, we may learn some valuable lessons
about the true meaning of the Christian life.
Why does God choose the shepherds to be recipients of the angelic proclamation of the birth of Jesus?

While the shepherds are out in the field watching their flocks, the Lord's angel appears to them
to bring this exciting news.
God could just as easily have sent the angel to the political leaders of the day.
Then, they could have gathered a great envoy, along with a magnificent military escort, to parade
to the location where the mighty Saviour and Messiah had been born.

But they would be disappointed to see this baby wrapped in blankets in a place where the animals sleep,
and to discover that the father is only a carpenter and the mother a simple peasant.
They might sneer in mock anger, much like they would years later at an illegal trial and an immoral crucifixion.

Instead, God reveals the good news to a group of shepherds representing the common people of the world.
If God did not choose the political giants, then why does God not choose the religious leaders?
After all, they are trained in the Scriptures, and should know all about the coming Messiah.
Surely, the religious leaders would be better vessels and messengers than the shepherds.

The lowly herdsmen do not practice the Jewish ceremonial laws, and they are looked down on by others
as being crude and unorthodox.

If the religious leaders rejected the the Messianic claims of the adult Jesus, can you imagine
how they would scoff at the possibility of a Messiah in a manger?
The religious leaders would have stated that God would never come to us in such a setting.

God chooses normal, down-to-earth people to be His agents, just as He did so many years ago
when He appeared to the shepherds.

• God loves the poor and the rich.
• He reaches out to the common, as well as to the famous.
• God reaches out to the failure as much as to the successful.