The Journey, the Manger

Luke 2:8-20

December 24, 2015

Mark S. Bollwinkel

Consider the Shepherds in our gospel lesson.

One would think that to announce the birth of the Son of God, the King of Kings, in the manger of Bethlehem, that the angels would have visited a poet, like the Romans always had who would write a verse for the new emperor.  The angels should have told an orator like the Greeks always used at the birth of a king, to give a stirring speech to the public.

But the angles came to a group of shepherds.

In recent centuries we have romanticized the shepherds of the Christmas story.  The figures in our crèche scenes, the characters in our plays and movies, depict the shepherds as a pious, clean and respectful bunch.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Adult shepherds in first century Palestine were pretty much a gang of thugs.  The orthodox said shepherds were just as bad sinners as tax collectors and prostitutes.  The religious folk of the day wouldn’t even eat with shepherds at the same table.

If one couldn’t do anything else to get by, one became a shepherd.  The pay was low, no pensions or coffee breaks.  Being outside all of the time and up most of the night gave shepherds ample opportunity to liberate other people’s property and animals.  They had the reputation of being thieves. 

Most people feared shepherds.  They were usually armed with blade, slingshot or rod [heavy sticks, bigger than a baseball bat].   They had to be armed in order to fight off threats to the flocks they were protecting, from wild animals or other thieves.  They had plenty of idle time to perfect their use of such weapons, as we learn from the example of the young King David and his prowess with a slingshot (I Samuel 17). 

The angel gives the greatest announcement of history, the birth of God into our world as one of us, to a group of low life, profane shepherds.  Just as amazingly the shepherds follow through.  They travel to Bethlehem, share the good news with all who will listen, and return not in fear, but in joy.

Rejection, suspicion and isolation were not the last words in the shepherds’ lives.  God uses the most unlikely of candidates to fulfill the divine promise of a new day, a new way in history in the most unlikely of ways.

Bethlehem at Jesus’ birth was a Palestinian town occupied by foreign troops enforcing the decrees of an oppressor state.  But the state sponsored terrorism of Caesar Augustus would not be the final word in Bethlehem’s fate.  In the midst of its poverty and fear, we will find divine incarnation born there in one of its mangers.  God uses the most unlikely of places and people to do the most important work.

For example, consider William Wilberforce (1759-1833), one of the parliamentarians who lead the movement to abolish slavery in the British Empire during the 18^th - 19^th centuries.   Born a sickly child to a wealthy mercantile family, as a teenager Wilberforce was exposed to the Methodist passion for personal spirituality and social responsibility [See what happens when you hang out with Methodists!].  That passion framed his adulthood.  Along with abolishing slavery, he was also one of the founders of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).   Wilberforce’s experiences of the Christ as “the Prince of Peace” lead him to oppose all forms of violence in the most surprising ways.

Is Bethlehem of 2015 much different than 2000 years ago?    Don’t we still yearn to see the promise of the Prince of Peace?  How can we see the light shining in our darkness to lead us beyond the present’s doubt and fear?

Remember that just because we can’t see the solution right now doesn’t mean there isn’t one. 

Only faith can dispel doubt and fear.  And whether we understand the Christmas story as history or metaphor or a combination of both, the basis of our faith is the conviction that love, peace and justice get the last word in life not the agents of power, greed and death.   Such love and light is born in the most surprising of places to the most unexpected people.  The likes of shepherds heard the angels sing and shared their good news with the world. 

Can we?  

May your Christmas celebration be full of the joy that cannot be kept quiet, that must be shouted out, and that comes with the knowledge of God’s gift received.   You see, the hopes and fears of all the years were met in him that night.

Amen.