SUPPORTING ROLES – ARRIVAL
Christmas – we get caught up in the stereotypical, stay at surface level, skim it because
we’ve seen it and read it 100 times before…. and we miss the lessons and truth for today.
Luke 2:8-20 – it’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind + a baby announcement all in one.
God’s guestbook to Jesus’s birth: outsiders. “Those people.”
The unclean shepherds. The Gentile magi.
1 Corinthians 1:27
Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful
or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order
to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those
who are powerful.
When we look down on others, when we set ourselves above them - we set the stage to
shame ourselves. Jesus saved some of his harshest words for the self-righteous, but
before Jesus could even utter a word, God was shaming the religious leaders of the day
who he didn’t reveal himself to.
Instead- as we’ll look at tonight- it involved the Shepherds.
“glory of the Lord shone around them” // “of the LORD” = denotes a supernatural
intensity. So bright you blink and you still see it on your eyelids. So electric the hairs on
your arms stand up.
From a marketing standpoint, this announcement was straight lousy.
- Like announcing it to the overnight crew that works on some road or highway
in the middle of nowhere. Really?
Their response to the next-level lights show? “They were terrified”
No doubt they were thinking the Angels first words could be,“Today is your judgment day”
Why a possible fear of God’s judgment – in addition to the obvious, you have to take
note of the shepherd’s occupation.
Shepherds had to deal with the nitty gritty reality of tending to dozens of sheep.
They had a hard time keeping religious purity as the religious leaders of their day defined
it. Sheep need constant protection, so keeping the Sabbath was next to impossible.
The distinction of “clean” and “unclean” was also an important one for the standards of
worship, and being “unclean” meant you couldn’t enter into the temple of worship.
Shepherds were deemed unclean by the very nature of their job.
What is especially ironic is that these shepherds outside of Jerusalem were no doubt
watching over some of the very animals that would be sacrificed in the temple for their
sins.
Every time they looked around they were surrounded by reminders why they weren’t
good enough. They lived under a constant siege of what made them “unclean."
In a way we all live with a flock of proverbial sheep, a flock of things that remind us why
we aren’t good enough. Things that give us a twinge of guilt. What’s in your flock?
Is it mistakes? Guilt? Regret? Embarrassment? Confusion? Shame? Disappointment?
Jesus coming as the prophesied “Lamb of God” would make these flocks suddenly
irrelevant… forgiveness would come through HIS blood.
1 John 2:1-2
My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin,
we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one
who is truly righteous. He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only
our sins but the sins of all the world.
Jesus, the sacrificial lamb of God, made the flock irrelevant.
He eliminated the hoops we set up to jump through; the list of religious requirements that
disqualify. He is the treasure in the field that we ditch the flock to prioritize above all
else.
I love that it says the shepherds took off running. There was no debate over who would
watch the sheep- they just dipped. They didn’t treat it as an untimely interruption. They
ran after the invitation.
Bottom line: they were available.
Lesson: We need to stop asking: “Am I able?”
and start asking “Am I available?”
“Am I able?” – ultimately it doesn’t matter. God is. And the dreams he calls us to are
often outside of our ability.
The shepherds certainly weren’t the most “able” to spread the announcement.
Their time was spent on hills away from people. These were far from men of influence.
They had no social platform and no voice.
But they’re a powerful reminder that God isn’t as concerned with our ability as he is with
our availability.
He recognizes both- our abilities can map God’s will for our lives.
But it’s our availability that sets us apart.
The question is: “Am I available?”
We take constants for granted. Gravity. Oxygen. Time.
And that’s the problem with God: he’s constant. His love. His grace. His presence.
New stimuli grabs our attention. But after prolonged exposure our brain pushes it to the
background. Psychologists call this intentional blindness.
This is why Christmas can be powerful. Our traditions mean unplugging from rushed
routines and discovering the joy of family, friends, relationship, and other constants we
often take for granted… or at least that’s the way it could be!
It more often is a blur of decorating, shopping, cooking, and alike, more in tune with
panic, playing catchup, and keeping a frenetic pace than anything resembling preparing
our hearts for “peace on earth.”
Some of need to stop adding to our “to-do list” and make a “stop doing” list to make
room for God again and make ourselves AVAILABLE.
Opposite of “available?” The first antonym that pulls up? Busy.
The way you speed up your growth is by slowing down and finding room for God.
Just as it was for Jesus, most ministry and evangelism opportunity is often unplanned,
spur of the moment, and an “interruption” if we don’t live in the proper pace and
perspective.
Again, I love that it says the shepherds took off running. They didn’t treat it as an
untimely interruption. They ran after the invitation.
It’s first and foremost about availability.
When we make it first and foremost about OUR ability is when things get screwy.
1.) When we think we lack the ability –
Moses at the Burning Bush. He denied his call due to lack of ability until God got angry.
2.) It gets messy when we think we HAVE the ability…
Shepherds could humbly receive. As Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…”
It speaks to humility – do we recognize we are broken and in need of a savior?
It’s a debate in our culture.
There is no perfect person and therefore no hope to build a humanly engineered utopia.
But it doesn’t stop many from trying.
Kings and religious leaders, people who self-righteously thought they had constructed the
ticket to life -- they saw Jesus as a THREAT.
When Jesus was revealed to Herod, what was his first instinct? To kill Jesus!
And ultimately it wasn’t the government or kings that killed Jesus, it was religious
leaders!
The self-righteousness and rich in Spirit.
Invictus – the chorus of kings and those that seek to rule their lives- stepping into the
humanistic chorus that “I am the master of my fate the captain of my soul.”
Objective evidence shows we aren’t the master of much.
Pharaohs, Herods, they all would see a “king” as competition, as an invasion.
They saw him as a threat--- and in a way he is.
The Romans didn’t persecute Christians for having a god. They persecuted Christians
because their God said it was the only God, the only appropriate object of worship.
Our society is equally pluralistic. Cool – have a god. Just don’t let your god tell me and
my gods how to live MY life. Don’t let your god get in my sacred space.
C.S. Lewis – “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God,
"Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All
that are in Hell, choose it.
Christ offers peace and life… but only to those who relinquish control, who abdicate the
seat of master and captain.
Luke 12:52 – “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth?”
You can imagine the disciples replying, “Well, allegedly that’s what the angels sang,
right… so yes?”
Jesus – “No, I tell you, but division.”
“Peace on Earth with whom God is pleased”
Hebrews 11:6 – “Without faith it’s impossible to please God.”
Those that believe God rewards those who diligently seek Him…
John 3:19 – “And the judgment is based on this fact: God's light came into the world,
but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.”
Simeon’s prophecy when Jesus was brought to the temple to be dedicated in Luke reads
like this:
“This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, and many others to rise. He has
been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him.”
The coming of Jesus comes with peace… peace that is the result of a choice.
God is less concerned with our ability than our availability for a simple reason:
God lacks no ability.
The one ability he vacated was to choose for us- Free Will- a gift of love.
WHAT’S MY CHOICE?
WHAT’S MY RESPONSE?
Available = listen AND respond.
Available– etymology - “able to avail.”
At one’s disposal, capable of being made use of.
First response –
“After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel
had said to them about this child.”
SHARING what just happened
Why aren’t we more effective in it? Why does it seem such a chore?
Key – the second take on the shepherds just verses later.
The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had
heard and seen.
Second response - JOY
JOY- An immediate fruit of our faith.
Matthew 13:44 - “in his JOY he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field”
Philippians 1:25- “Knowing this, I am convinced that I will remain alive so I can continue
to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your faith.”
We’d confess the same. We come into church. We worship God.
“God is good…” (“All the time!!”)
- how many of us live like it, all the time?
What good is joy if it can be robbed by a “bad day”? Or circumstance?
“They went back to their flocks…”
They went back to the same situation but had an entirely different mindset.
Their rejoicing wasn’t based on circumstances.
There’s a theory in the church that life will always be on an upward trajectory and we’ll
never have disappointment or feel stuck.
Christmas promises this in bundles - if you just had THIS, your joy would be complete.
But ultimately, you’re still left without lasting joy, looking for something to escape
current circumstance.
We suffer from an inability to be grateful and glad about where we are. We are stuck
always wanting more.
It results in a lack the ability to recognize God’s generosity and grace, living more dialed
into what we don’t have.
It robs us of gladness, gratitude, and the ability to rejoice amidst God’s gifts.
It robs us of our availability.
It keeps us from being available to God and saying - “God what can you do through me
with what I have?"
Forgetfulness of what Christ has done.
More mindful of our flock.
We aren’t able.
But Christ is.
Let’s stop asking “Am I able?”
Let’s start asking “Am I available to the God who is more than able?”
Psalm 51:12- Restore to me the JOY of my salvation. - David