Advent Service - The Voices of the Shepherds

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon

Advent Service, December 16, 2009

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

This morning, I was reading the newspaper and I read a headline that said, “Chippewa’s Coach goes to Cincinnati.” Now being from Michigan, I knew what a Chippewa was. Chippewa is the mascot of the Central Michigan University football and sports teams. This is the second time that Cincinnati has gone to Central Michigan and taken their coach to become their coach. Three years ago, they did it with Brian Kelly and now Butch Jones is the next guy in line at Cincinnati.

It’s not going to be much of a transition, though, because they worked together at Central Michigan before. It’s going to be pretty much the same philosophy of coaching, the same schemes of offense, the same strategies and games, pretty much the same message, just a different voice.

That’s kind of what we’ve been doing with Advent this year. The voices of Advent, prophets, angels, shepherds, pretty much the same message but different voices. Prophets foretold the coming of the Savior and all the things He would do for the nation of Israel, God’s people. Angels announced His arrival and proclaimed all that He would accomplish for the people. Great news, great joy for all people. And finally, the shepherds, they spread the word concerning everything they had been told and everything they had seen. The same message, different voices.

Now prophets of old were usually godly men whose entire lives were dedicated to serving God. They lived in ways that demonstrated their faith and obedience. Sometimes they lived in the wilderness; sometimes they endured hardship, all for the sake of serving God and being his mouthpiece to the people of their time.

Angels are described in the bible as ministering spirits. They’re not people who have become angels. There’s something different, something God created beautiful and wonderful, ministering spirits to comfort us and help us but, most importantly, to be His messengers to us. And so we find them appearing at different places in the bible and giving special messages, like they did to Mary and Joseph and the shepherds who were out in the fields watching their flock.

Speaking of shepherds, what about them? What do we know about them? Well, we know what they did for a living. In some of our bible studies, we’ve learned things about the shepherds, that they guide and guard and protect the sheep and they help them find food and all those kinds of things. But what do we really know about these shepherds? Well, let me tell you a little bit about them. First of all, when you know everything there is to know about a shepherd, they’re probably the last people who you’d expect God to reveal His Savior to. They’re probably the last people who you’d expect God to open the heavens and show a choir of angels proclaiming and praising God’s Word. They’re probably the last people who you would entrust the precious message about the birth of Jesus. And this is why: First of all, they were religious outcasts. In fact, according to Jewish law, Jewish religious law, these men were considered unclean. You can even remember when God’s people came down to Egypt during the time of the great famine and they were speaking to the Pharaoh and Joseph said, “I know if we tell him we’re shepherds, then he’ll give us our own space because they don’t want anything to do with shepherds.” Shepherds are disgusting and dirty and all that.

The same thing was true in the time of Jesus. Shepherds were religious outcasts and their line of work actually prevented them from participating in the feasts and holy days that made up the Jewish religious calendar. “Why would they not be able to do that?” you might say. Well, somebody has to watch the sheep. While everyone else is making their pilgrimages to Jerusalem and offering sacrifices and observing the feasts and all these wonderful celebrations of the Jewish faith, they were out in the fields watching over the sheep. It wasn’t really their fault. It wasn’t their fault they were looked down upon from a religious point or any other way. And there’s really no way of telling what was in their hearts, but they weren’t able to participate like normal people in the religious life of the Jewish community.

Not only that, but they were pretty much social outcasts as well. They were constantly on the move to try to find new pasture, new grass for their sheep to eat. They were looked upon in suspicion, kind of the way you might look upon gypsies or carnival workers or people who kind of move about. You’re not really sure who they are. They look a little different. Their ways are a little different.

Sometimes they were accused of being thieves and if something came up missing, “Oh, it must have been one of those shepherds. Can’t trust a shepherd.” They were not permitted to give testimony in a legal proceeding because their word wasn’t considered trustworthy. They didn’t have much contact with other people because, most of the time, they were working. They didn’t work a 40-hour work week, more like 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They didn’t come home at night to their families and things like that. They were with those sheep all day and all night.

During the day, they led them to places of grass and water and watched over them and protected them from anything that might come to attack them. Wolves, bears, even lions are described as predators of sheep in the holy land. At night, the shepherds actually slept in the pen with the sheep so they could guard them and protect them.

A good shepherd knew his sheep and the sheep knew him. It was a lonely, wearisome existence, usually pretty boring and tedious at times but also sometimes dangerous. It gave them a lot of contact with sheep but very little exposure to people. It’s no wonder that we read about people like David, the shepherd who became a king, and realize that he was a great musician. He was used to great amounts of time with nothing to do except watch sheep. Many shepherds learned to play musical instruments.

Now let’s take a step back from that a moment and think about it. If you had some great message to proclaim to the whole world, some great event that was about to happen or just had happened, like the birth of the Messiah, who would you choose to share that with? Now if it happened today, would we share it with the President knowing full well he’s going to tell everybody, he’s going to tell the whole world about it? Or a governor? Or any other political leader? Who would we share it with?

Well, the selection of the shepherds wasn’t a very logical selection. And it just seems strange that God would use outcasts to do such an important task to entrust to them the precious message; the message of the Savior, the message that God had kept His promise and sent His Son to be the Savior of all the world; the message that Jesus, not just the baby Jesus, but Jesus, the young man who grew up and taught and walked and performed miracles, gave Himself as a sacrifice in our place on the cross; the message that tells us His body was broken and His innocent blood was shed so we could be forgiven and receive eternal life; the message that sets people free for eternity.

The voices through history have changed. Prophets, angels, shepherds, disciples, generation after generation of Christian voices have spread the Good News and shared the message all the way up until this day today. Even today, the message needs to be heard. The question is who will be God’s next choice to proclaim the message?

This morning, I was watching TV for a minute and I heard on Channel 23 the voice of a young girl, probably 6 or 7 years old, tell the story of Christmas. Now this was like a commercial break between the programs. She told the whole story and then concluded by saying, “And that’s the reason for the season.” That beautiful, cherub-like voice.

Who will be next? Will your voice be the next to spread the word about Jesus? Will your voice stand with the voices of the prophets, the voices of the angels, the voices of the shepherds, the voices of the disciples in all the generations that have come before us? Will your voice join theirs?

Take a moment and think. What voice told you about Jesus? Maybe your mother or your Sunday School teacher or your spouse. Hum. Through them, God has set you free. Through them, God has given you eternal life and now whose voice will it be that shares that message again and again in the future?

The choice is yours, literally. God’s choice for the voice is yours. As He has called you into a relationship with Himself, a relationship which you enjoy His loving embrace of grace, He has chosen you to speak those beautiful words to the next generation. Amen.

Copyright 2009 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church