Why Shepherds? Why You? Why Me?

[This is the message prepared for last evening's Christmas Eve services with the people and friends of  Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. But something the nurse practitioner at the doctor's office called viral gastroenterits hit me yesterday, meaning that I shouldn't be around people. Living Water's worship and music director Mark Brennan shared the message while doing all of his other work. Thank you, Mark!]

Luke 2:1-18

The accounts of the first Christmas in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels are filled with characters. 

Of course, there’s Jesus, God the Son Who comes into the world as a baby Who will one day die and rise to give forgiveness and everlasting life to all who believe in Him. 

There are Mary and Joseph, the couple chosen by God the Father to be Jesus’ earthly parents. 

There’s Caesar Augustus, the most powerful of the Roman emperors, who ordered a census in his conquered territories, meaning that to register, Joseph and Mary, both descendants of David, had to travel to Bethlehem, where the Old Testament prophecies said the Messiah would be born. 

There are the angels and the animals. 

Later, there are King Herod, and scribes, and wise men from the East who, following a portentous star, arrive sometime after Jesus’ birth to bring gifts to the Baby they perceive to be a King. 

In their way, the appearance in the nativity histories of each of these characters makes sense.

But what about the shepherds? When you think about it, the shepherds’ part in this story seems misplaced. 

It’s easy to understand why Mary and Joseph are in the story. 

Easy to understand too the presence of Caesar, who turned the lives of ordinary people upside down when he ordered them to walk distances of eighty miles or more just for the privilege of being taxed by a foreign overlord. That order meant that Jesus would be born in the right place.* 

It’s even easy to understand the presence of the livestock.

Unlike kings, emperors, and wise men though, the shepherds had no earthly power. Shepherds were poor. Shepherds had no influence. They were vulnerable. And they were thought of as among the lowlife of society. No Judean child thought, “When I grow up, I want to be a shepherd.”

And unlike the animals at the manger, the shepherds would not have been physically close to the place where Jesus was born. They had no reason to be in Bethlehem; their place was in the fields.

Yet it was to shepherds keeping watch over their sheep that God sent an angel to announce the birth of the Savior of the world. 

But God must have thought the angels were important on this night. 

And just in case the shepherds thought the angels’ message was really for someone else, just like all the other good news and happy blessings of the world always seemed to be, the angel’s message could not have been clearer. He tells the shepherds: “...I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:10-12)

The shepherds weren't a Christmas afterthought on God's part. It's significant that the angel didn’t go to the powerful king, priests, or scribes in Jerusalem to let them know. The big shots in Jerusalem were too busy being big shots to rejoice over an angel pronouncing the Messiah’s birth. Besides, as Matthew tells us, it was these elites who regarded Jesus as a threat and determined that any newborn Messiah would need to be exterminated in his crib.

The shepherds have none of what the Jerusalem elites have. 

They have no power, perks, or comfort. 

Like the poor and weak of every age, their daily lives show them how vulnerable and fragile they are. 

And it is precisely to people who see their vulnerability that Christ comes. 

• He comes to those who know that they are sinners in need of the grace and forgiveness He gives to all who believe in Him. 
• He comes to those who are weak and heavy laden and offers them rest. 
• He comes to those who are rejected by the world and gives them God’s eternal acceptance. 
• He comes to the poor and the poor in spirit and gives them the riches of heaven and His presence with them always!

God sent the angel to announce Jesus’ birth to the shepherds and so fulfilled what Mary, the virgin chosen by God to be Jesus’ mother, had said would happen when the Messiah arrived. 

She had told her kinswoman Elizabeth that her soul magnified God because “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty...just as he promised our ancestors.” (Luke 1:52-53, 55)

God comes to those willing to cast aside their delusions of self-sufficiency, self-importance, and self-righteousness. 

The God we know in Jesus comes to those willing to pray, “Hallowed by Your name, Father. Your kingdom. Your will be done, Lord.” 

It is to  just such people that our Savior comes today so that He can raise them with Jesus. 

To many people--if not to most people--this will seem crazy, foolish. “But,” the apostle Paul writes in the New Testament, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things...so that no one may boast before him.” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

Friends, the angel’s “good news of great joy” is for you. The Savior Jesus will give never give life with God to those who are too busy being busy or pretending to be self-sufficient to hear His call to new and everlasting life. But Jesus does give life to those who, like the shepherds, listen to God’s voice and follow where Jesus leads. 

And Jesus does give life to those who, broken by the knowledge that they are sinners in need of a Savior and made new by the Gospel Word that God so loves the world--God so loves you--that He gave His Son to live, die, and rise for you, replacing your sin and death with His righteousness and His risen life.

To you this day Christ has come. 

To you every day Christ comes. 

Run to Him when He calls you, then tell the good news of the Savior Who, unlike kings or scribes or presidents or emperors, is always and forever and totally for you. 

God knew that that message would mean everything to the shepherds and that because of it, they would run to see the baby and then tell others about the Savior. 

May the angels’ message given on the first Christmas mean everything to you and me too, so that every day, we run to spend time with Jesus and every day, we point others to Jesus. 

Merry Christmas, friends!

*Eighty miles is the approximate walking distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Welcome to the Kingdom

[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, this past Sunday.]

Luke 6:17-26
I first heard of the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of Saint James, when Ann and I watched the movie, The Way, starring Martin Sheen. The Camino is a series of pilgrimage pathways on which people walk to the shrine of the apostle James the Great in northwest Spain. Our own Theresa has trekked on this pathway. Recently, we watched a TV travelog on the Camino. Friends of ours are going to Spain with a group to walk a portion of the way that has been so important to Christians since the Middle Ages. I’m looking forward to hearing their descriptions of the Camino. It’s one thing to read about or see pictures of a place; it’s another thing to hear from people who have actually been there.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 6:17-26, Jesus, incarnate God, Who was both an occupant and the architect of a place where He wants all people to live describes both what this place is like and what it isn’t like. Jesus describes the kingdom of God, not a place on a map, but a state of being, a state of blessedness. 

All who live under the reign of God, who have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, the Lord Who came into this world in order to give us the kingdom, live in this blessedness today (even when we feel burdened by grief, money, disagreements, guilt, sin, discouragement) AND will live in even greater blessedness after Jesus has raised us from the dead. 

Like someone Who has been there then, Jesus describes the kingdom of God for us. Maybe like me, in the midst of challenging times, you need to hear about the kingdom of God. Jesus seems to think that we have need to hear about it.

So, please look at our lesson. It begins at verse 17: “He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.”

Here we see that Jesus has just been on a mountaintop, where He has chosen twelve of His followers (disciples) to be His apostles. In Luke’s gospel, mountaintops are always places of prayer and closeness with God. We need mountaintops: times of worship and prayer and reading God’s Word. It’s these times that help us face our days and weeks with the grace and hope that God wants to give to us. 

But there are also jobs to be done, bills to be paid, decisions to make, kids to shuttle this way and that, groceries to buy, lawns to be mowed, driveways to clear of snow, life to be lived. We have to leave the mountaintops and go to the level plains. While He was on earth, even Jesus had to do that.

When Jesus and the twelve apostles get to the bottom of the mountain, onto a flat plain, there are all kinds of people gathered to hear Jesus and to be helped by Him. Jesus teaches and heals. Down on the Plain--down in the everyday places of life, Jesus makes Himself accessible to all people: apostles, disciples, and the crowds who don’t yet believe, but know that there is something different about this preacher from Nazareth.

The very fact that Jesus went down to the Plain from the mountaintop, just as He once had gone from the throne room of heaven to a cattle barn to be born into this life and would one day go to a cross He didn’t deserve, tells us something about the kingdom of God. It is God’s passionate desire that all of us who would otherwise be condemned to death and separation from God will be part of it! He wants to give everyone an opportunity to be part of His kingdom, whatever pigeonholes the world might put us in. 

Jesus embodies what Mary, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, knew would happen through Jesus. Remember what she told her relative Elizabeth what was happening through the baby Jesus then in her womb: “...He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:52-53) 

Through Jesus, the kingdom of God overthrows the old order of this world. Richness and health and power and full bellies are no advantage to those who want to walk with God. 

Jesus puts everyone on the same level. He wants all of us, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile. And He loves all of us, the whole human race made in His image.

Now, Jesus describes the kingdom of God. Verse 20: “Looking at his disciples, he said: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.”

Here Jesus describes two blessings enjoyed by people who are in the kingdom of God today and two that we will enjoy in eternity. 

According to Jesus, the poor are blessed. Maybe it’s because they’re not weighed down with stuff. Years ago, a friend of mine was the CFO for a company that had been in on the early years the dotcom boom. He also did the founding millionaire’s taxes. One year after my friend had done the founder’s taxes, his boss confided, “You know, when I was poor and had nothing, I thought that if I only had money, I’d be happy and carefree. Now that I have this money, I worry all the time about how I’m going to keep it.” Rich or poor, those who enter the kingdom of God through faith in Jesus are blessed. Money has a way of fooling us into thinking that we have everything under control. But that’s a lie. In the kingdom of God, we relish the fact that we’re not in control; God is. And when we trust in Jesus, God has us in the palm of His hands. 

Jesus also says that persecuted believers are blessed because in their faithfulness, they join a long line of persecuted believers who experienced a promise that only a crucified and risen Savior can make: “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20).

The hungry who trust in Christ will be blessed one day to sit at the eternal feast with God. This is the feast that the Old Testament prophet Isaiah foretold centuries before Jesus’ birth: “The LORD of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, And refined, aged wine.” (Isaiah 25:6) We get a foretaste of this feast every time we receive Holy Communion.

The grieving who trust in Christ will be blessed one day when Jesus welcomes them into eternity. It’s a place in which, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

Jesus’ description of how He turns the ways of this world upside down in the kingdom of God continues in a set of curses. They describe the lives of those who, like the oldest boy in His parable of the prodigal son, refuse to enter into the kingdom, even though it's offered to them as a free gift. 

Verse 24: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.” (Luke 6:24-26)

Here, Jesus is flouting the so-called wisdom or common sense of this world. This false wisdom tells us that the goal of this life is to make ourselves comfortable, to get as much as we can, to avoid problems and troubles at all costs, to live like kings and queens. But that’s the way of death, of separation from God and separation from others. In the kingdom of God, the last are first and the first are last. The blessed are those who know that it’s in Jesus that we find life (John 1:4) and in Jesus alone (John 14:6). 

Jesus makes me want to belt out the words from an old song, “You can take the wisdom of this world / And give it to the ones who think it all ends here.” (Bruce Cockburn, The Hills of Morning)

People who experience the blessedness of life in God’s kingdom know God gives so much more than what this dead world can offer to us!

I knew a woman who came from a wealthy family. She never wanted for anything. She had food to eat and money to spend. Cancer, which came to her, doesn’t care about those kinds of things though. (Neither do car crashes, heart attacks, or any of the other things that can rob us of health, life, or happiness in this world.) But this woman was blessed because she didn’t put her faith in wealth or plenty, laughter or the acceptance of others. She trusted in Jesus Christ. She was a citizen of the kingdom of God, the place in which all who trust in Christ know that nothing “in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:39) 

Even as she drew her last breath, she was blessed. She is even today. You and I don’t have to imagine the kingdom of God or rely on other people’s descriptions of it. We can live in God’s kingdom right now. It’s the kingdom in which Jesus blesses you with forgiveness, life, peace, and hope. It’s the place we live in whenever we turn to Him to be our God and King and Savior. And through Jesus, it is ours forever. Thank God for that, the greatest blessing of all. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Epiphany Signs Christ Gives Us to Do

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Luke 4:14-21
This Epiphany season, as we said last week, is a time when we look at many incidents from Jesus’ time on earth that unscramble our picture of Him, helping us to understand that in Jesus Christ, we meet more than just a human being; He’s also God and the world’s long-promised Messiah, Savior, and King.

But the first sign of Jesus does in the lesson and the others we're told about are very different from a voice shouting God the Father’s pleasure with God the Son on the banks of the Jordan or from Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding, which are the signs we attended to over the past two Sunday. The signs in today’s lesson are simpler.

The first one narrated by Luke here comes in a visit home, the reading of a Bible lesson during worship, and a plain, yet forceful statement Jesus makes about Himself.

After being baptized and then propelled by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted, Jesus had done some teaching and healing. His hometown was already abuzz with word about Him. When it reached Nazareth that Jesus was on His way, the hometown crowd was excited. Luke tells us: “When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day…He stood up [and read from the scroll]: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’”

And then, Luke says that Jesus “rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.” In what must have been a moment of high and silent, drama, Jesus then told His townspeople--and us--"Today, right at this moment, in your hearing, all foretold centuries ago has taken place.”

The words that Jesus read in worship that day were from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. You can read them today, in chapters 58 and 61 of Isaiah’s book. Jesus claims that He is the anointed king (that’s what the word Messiah in the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the word Christ in the Greek of the New Testament, mean, Anointed One) come to usher in the reign of God. And to prove it, Jesus asks the Nazarenes to consider the signs they’ve heard reports of Him doing: He proclaims good news to the poor; sets captives free; lets the blind see; and He springs the oppressed from their imprisonments. All of these things, Jesus says, are signs of Who He is and Who He came into the world to be for all of us.

These signs should be especially interesting to us because Jesus, later in His ministry, made the stunning claim that in His Name, His Church—you and I--would do the works that He does and, He said, even greater works.

In the list of signs Jesus gives today, there are no miracles of loaves and fishes, no thunderstrikes from heaven, just the tough, healing love of God meeting real people in their everyday lives.

These are signs that Christ wants to perform through you and me. Through simple signs lile these, people see the God we meet in Jesus Christ and come to believe in Him. Jesus wants to empower you and me to do the signs about which He spoke at Nazareth in order to point the whole world to the hope and life that only Jesus gives.

Jesus, for example, wants to set captives free through us. The word that Jesus uses for free here, aphesis, in the original Greek of the text is the same word He uses for forgiveness. It literally means release. In Christ, we are released from the debt we owe for our sin. Followers of Jesus are meant to show others that Christ can release them from their bondage to sin, to fear, and to needless guilt.

True story. “Carl Coleman was driving to work one morning when he bumped fenders with another motorist. Both cars stopped, and the woman driving the other car got out to survey the damage. She was distraught. It was her fault, she admitted, and hers was a new car, less than two days from the showroom. She dreaded facing her husband. Coleman was sympathetic, but he had to pursue the exchange of license and registration data. [The woman] reached into her glove compartment to retrieve the documents, which were in an envelope. On the first paper to tumble out, written in her husband's distinctive hand, were these words: 'In case of accident, remember, Honey, it's you I love, not the car.'”

Every Sunday, you and I pray the prayer our Lord taught us, including the petition, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches us that, “if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” For you and me, sharing with others the freedom from captivity to sin that Jesus brings also sets us free from the paralyzing, gut-wrenching resentments and grudges that can rob us of life and joy when we fail to forgive. Jesus wants to free us from captivity to sin. And through us, Jesus proclaims release to other captives.

Jesus also wants us to bring good news to the poor. The poor were certainly a priority for Jesus and, as you read both the Old and New Testaments, God's revealed Word, you see that the poor has always been a priority for God.

And it's interesting to notice that when Jesus was born, He wasn’t entrusted to parents who were wealthy people. Instead, He was born into poverty. Mary, the mother of Jesus, saw this as especially fitting. Remember how, in the words she spoke to her relative, Elizabeth, Mary said, “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty”?

Jesus’ people, grateful for the free gifts of forgiveness and everlasting life, are called to share their blessings and to make the poor a priority. That’s what we do in our servanthood events and it’s what I hope will also be reflected in our generous midweek Lenten offerings for relief to the impoverished and beleaguered people of Haiti, starting on February 17.

Tomorrow night, our servanthood team meets again to plan our next outreach event. You’re invited to participate in the planning, as well as the actual outreach events themselves. Last year, when we collected food for distribution by Hocking County Job and Family Services and later, infant formula and diapers for distribution by the health department and by the agency for Developmental Disabilities, your response and involvement were fantastic! The team meets at 6:00 tomorrow here in the fellowship hall. I hope you can make it.

Through us, Jesus also wants, in the words He quotes from Isaiah, to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

What does that mean?

The Old Testament book of Leviticus said that every fifty years in Israel, all debts were to be forgiven, all land restored to its original owners or their heirs, and all slaves were to be set free. It was called the Jubilee year.

Fifteen centuries after the laws in Leviticus were given to God’s people, Jesus proclaims a kind of permanent Jubilee! He says that He’s come to forgive all debts and all sins for all eternity. This is a free gift for all who turn from sin and who entrust their whole lives to Jesus Christ.

I find that this message of new life for all who believe in Jesus is news of which the world never tires and for which its need never lessens. A few years ago, in my former community, I met with a professional man on community business. I’d known this man for years. He was someone I had long suspected was dealing with unresolved guilt and questions about his relationship with God that he didn’t have the courage to face. As we were wrapping up our meeting, I put my arm on his shoulder and told him, “You know, the welcome mat is always out for you at our church.” He smiled and said, “I like your style.”

I don’t know if I have any style. But I do know that what I wanted to convey to that man was God’s favor, that God was for him, that God wanted to deepen His relationship with him through the fellowship of a caring church family, and that whatever secret guilt he may have harbored could never be big enough or awful enough to keep the forgiveness of Jesus from him if he wanted that forgiveness.

And that’s true for you and me as well. Every time we come to God in repentance, He declares a jubilee. Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty in full for all of our sins, no exceptions. When we confess our sins and ask God to help us walk away from them, forgiveness is total.

Our friends, neighbors, and coworkers need to know that just as much as you and I do. Whatever your style, whether you’re shy or bold, old or young, you can convey that message to the people in your life. You can declare an everlasting Jubilee free of the weight of guilt to everyone you know!

When Jesus went to worship with the people of His hometown, He told them that they could know He was their Messiah because He set people free through His love, He made the poor His priority, and He showed them that God was for them.

In His Name, you and I can do the same things today, showing people who might feel distant from God and isolated from others that their loving God and His Church are here for them always.

In ways as simple as those used by our Savior, we can be signs of Who Jesus is and of all that He wants to be for everyone for all eternity. Amen