Luke 2:13-20
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
Can you remember, as a child, calling a friend sometime Christmas day to talk about the gifts that each of you had received earlier in the morning?
I can remember calling my best friend to find out what he got and, more importantly, to tell him about my new “Johnny Quest Space Station” or my “Snurfer” (which was a kind of prehistoric snowboard)! It just seems to be natural to share that which brings us joy with others. It’s natural to want to share good news!
Look again at what the shepherds do with their good news.
When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
I think people were “amazed at what the shepherds said” for two reasons. First they were amazed at what the shepherds had to say!
Angels.
Lots of angels!
Glory.
Lots of glory!
A baby.
A baby in a manger.
A baby born to be Messiah.
A baby born to be King!
All of that together easily qualifies as “amazing”!
But I think they were also amazed that it was the shepherds who delivered this amazing news. Shepherds!? Really?
These were uneducated men of the field. These were men who would not have been on anyone’s dinner party guest list. These were men who smelled of earth and wet wool. Yet, these men claim to have good news from God himself; they are bearers of the euongellion, the gospel of God.
Amazing? Yes, but “crazy” might be a better word! Why in the world would God choose to announce his good news of salvation through a baby? Why would God allow that child to be born in a stable and laid in a feeding trough? And why would God entrust this glorious good news to such inglorious messengers?
Why indeed?
I don’t often use long quotes in this devotional guide, but Frederick Buechner has addressed this question with unusual eloquence.
Christmas itself is by grace. It could never have survived our own blindness and depredations otherwise. It could never have happened otherwise. Perhaps it is the very wildness and strangeness of the grace that has led us to try to tame it. We have tried to make it habitable. We have reduced it to an occasion we feel at home with, at best a touching and beautiful occasion, at worst a trite and cloying one. But if the Christmas event in itself is indeed – as a matter of cold, hard fact – all its cracked up to be, then even at best our efforts are misleading.
The Word became flesh. Ultimate mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light…You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God…who for us an dour salvation,” as the Nicene Creed puts it, “came down from heaven.” (from “Whistling in the Dark,” by Frederick Buechner)
I love that.
Why did God choose the shepherds? Because his grace is wild and strange; because the gospel is untamable; because if he would come to shepherds he would come to anyone; and because if this child turns shepherds into the heralds of the gospel, then we, too, are his heralds.
Heralds of the gospel; heralds of great joy!
Brian Coffey
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