Co-Lead Minister
Luke 2: 8-20
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“Do not be afraid for I bring you good news of great joy.”
Many of us have heard this verse so often, for so many years, that its power may be lost on us. We have heard it loud and clear read from the pulpit. We have heard it muffled and indistinct, spoken in a voice from behind a costume far too big for the preschool cherub asked to deliver the lines. Many of us have heard it year after year until it has become sentimental, predictable, harmless. But it was not always so.
The shepherds were watching their flocks at night. A still night, a silent night; the only creatures stirring were the sheep and other nocturnal animals. And suddenly, unexpectedly, horrifyingly, the angel of the Lord stood before them. Neko Case gives a wonderful description of God’s angel: “…with the moon round his waist and the wind in his fists and the stars in his hair.” (Neko Kale, Fox Confessor) And the glory of the Lord shone around them.
For the shepherds, this appearance would not signal the coming of good news. For them, it would be more like having a police car pull in close behind you, with all their brilliant light and noise calling for your attention. The shepherds were rightfully afraid because, rather than being awed by all the mystery and splendor, they would probably be in fear, expecting bad news and strong judgment from God’s messengers.
For shepherds were not as we imagine them now. They were not shiny faced children wrapped in old house coats and tea towels. Shepherds of the first century were “…suspicious migrants who lived on society’s margins.” (New Proclamation 1998-99) They were “…regarded as thieves who stole, slaughtered, and sold the newborn lambs of the flock that had been entrusted to them.” (New Proclamation 2004-4) In Jesus’ time they were regarded in the same light as street people often are: grungy, on the edge, considered with suspicion, unkempt and unclean. Bright lights and booming voices would more likely be a sign that they were under arrest than that they were to hear good news.
But indeed, the angel comes with good news. News that the promises of God are being fulfilled on this holy night. News of the hope come to pass that the lowly will be lifted up and the hungry filled with good things. News that there will be peace between God and the people of God, and between the peoples of God and all creation. News of the joyful release of captives and the forgiveness of crippling debts. News of the abundant love of God for all creation. Hope. Peace. Joy. Love. God’s promise fulfilled. Tonight. In this place. “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom God favours.”
The angel, “with the moon round their waist and the wind in their fist and the stars in their hair” goes on to tell the shepherds what they must look for, what signs will tell them that they are in the presence of God’s promise: “…you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”
And then the fields clear. The skies are dark again. The air is stilled. The sheep return to their grazing and the shepherds are alone. I’m not sure that in that particular moment they would have been filled with good news of great joy for all the people. I’m guessing rather that they might have been wondering what the hell had just happened. They look to one another; they see in each other’s faces wonder, mystery, fear, and maybe, maybe, some hope. But in the midst of it all – they believed they had been addressed by God. “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”
This passage always makes me think of those of us that gather for worship, whether we come regularly or we are drawn particularly during Advent and Christmas Eve. We come for many reasons: we come from habit, from a desire to keep favourite traditions, perhaps out of a deep yearning to hear a word of hope, perhaps we come just to make our mothers happy, which as a mother of three non-regularly attending sons is a good enough reason for me. And perhaps we come to see for ourselves this thing that has happened. We come from whatever fields we labour in, literally and metaphorically, from the malls and from our kitchens and our schools and our work places. We’ve heard something about the good news of this season, and we are drawn, like the shepherds, to see for ourselves what it looks like. To see the manger and the bands of cloth and to know that love has drawn near. To see this thing of good news and great joy, that is for all the people, shepherds and us alike.
The shepherds set off, according to the angels’ instructions. Maybe they left one of their members behind, to guard the flocks. Or maybe they all headed off together, herding the reluctant sheep ahead of them, hurrying, anxious to get to Bethlehem. And when they arrive, they find as promised the child, wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. Simple details confirming what the angels have told them; confirming that God has made good on God’s promises and that the world as they have known it is to be turned upside down, made right, redeemed.
But you know, even before they arrive, they have already experienced one of the signs of God’s coming kingdom. For God’s voice came first to the downtrodden, the religiously negligent, those considered most unlikely to be the first recipients of God’s grace. This was the first sign, this is still the telling sign – that God’s good news is indeed not only for all the people, but is particularly for the shepherds and those like them.
Arriving at the stable the shepherds have a part in this first pageant and when they see the child, they remember their lines. They told Mary and Joseph about the angels, about the good news, about the identity of their son. He is the one to descend from King David and lead his people into righteousness and freedom. He is the promises of God come amongst us in human form. This most vulnerable baby is a gift to God’s most vulnerable people.
For some reason we have forgotten the significance of what the shepherds do when they arrive in Bethlehem. Just as they herded and delivered sheep all their days, they were the first to herd and deliver the good news of great joy to all the people. Imagine that these shepherds are to tell of the arrival of a new King, a Saviour. These marginal men, who have been shunned and whose worth is insignificant, they are the ones to declare to others that God’s realm is breaking into history.
Some time ago Peter Short, past Moderator of the United Church, wrote an article in The Observer, what was then a magazine affiliated with the United Church. He told a story about a pageant similar to the many pageants of our past. A pageant full of eager young children, precious angels in white sheets and shiny halos, anxious to do their parts. He tells of a time when the young one whose job it was to speak the words of good news froze up and couldn’t deliver. A mother who was prompting the children was forced from her hiding spot and into the limelight where she had to deliver the words, “Be not afraid. I bring you good news of great joy.”
Peter writes of how moved he was to hear an adult say these words. “She is, after all, an adult. Surely, she must know about the sham and the drudgery and the broken dreams of the world in which she finds herself an unlikely herald. Surely, she knows of the exhaustion and hopelessness that overwhelms us. Surely she is aware that the world to which she announces the good news of a Saviour is the very same planet that is sick to death [from environmental degradation, that tetters on the edge of global violence, whose leaders now say that empathy is a weakness and that the one who dies with the most money wins.]
Out of the mouths of the babes in the pageant the words have a certain sentimental appeal.” But this is an adult angel. One of the adults who knows better. One of us, still declaring good news and profound hope for all the people. All the people.
Peter continues to write: “Joy is not a good mood, it is a good truth: a truth that lies deep in the heart of things. Joy is the strange knowledge that in spite of all we have become and failed to become, we are born anew in Christ…” Hope, peace, joy and love are born anew in Christ.
Their task done the shepherds return to their sheep and to their lives, but they will never return to who they were before. Because now they know that God has reached out and claimed them. The good news is not safe and predictable news; it is news that will turn their world and our world upside down. God has come amongst us and things are about to change. Not magically, not as we sit back jaundiced and cynical and wait to see if this year rolls out any differently from any other year. But when we are emboldened with God’s trust in us, when we are enlivened by the truth that God’s angels come to each one of us with good news to share. When we really believe that we are seen and treasured, that God looks upon us as the parents look upon those children in the pageant. When we sing ‘this, this is Christ the king’ and realize that this, this Child is the very one the world has been waiting for and who now is waiting for us.
‘Peace on the earth, good will to all, comes from heaven’s all gracious King!’ As adults in a world that groans in despair, we indeed have good news to share. Like Mary, ponder all these things in your hearts. Let it sink into your bones and then go tell all the people. And be not afraid. Amen.