Good morning,
Praise the Lord. This is the first Friday of 2012. It is also Christmas Eve for our brothers and sisters of the Russian Orthodox tradition. Our Russian friends who were with us on December 3, 2011, are back in St. Petersburg, Russia to celebrate Christmas.
Pondering the Birth of our Savior and Lord once again, I think about the shepherds who were keeping watch over their flock by night. It has been fascinating to gaze at the shepherd and their sheep during my visits to the Holy Land. Even today the shepherds in the Holy Land are the marginalized and forgotten. In their day it was the same, and worse.
They had no status in their culture. They were uneducated, and were considered low-class. They were called shepherds. During Jesus’ time, being a shepherd was a dead-end job. There was no hope for advancement. They had little chance of doing anything different the rest of their life. Shepherds had a hard, thankless job. In the greater scheme of things, they were not considered very important.
In the musical “Child of the Promise” by Michael and Stormie Omartian, the song “Nothing Ever Happens to a Shepherd” captures the essence of what it was like for shepherds:
"It’s cold outside in this God-forsaken place
They had no status in their culture. They were uneducated, and were considered low-class. They were called shepherds. During Jesus’ time, being a shepherd was a dead-end job. There was no hope for advancement. They had little chance of doing anything different the rest of their life. Shepherds had a hard, thankless job. In the greater scheme of things, they were not considered very important.
In the musical “Child of the Promise” by Michael and Stormie Omartian, the song “Nothing Ever Happens to a Shepherd” captures the essence of what it was like for shepherds:
"It’s cold outside in this God-forsaken place
And we’re stuck here with a thousand sheep.
While life is exciting for everybody else, the highlight of our day is sleep.
It’s lonely out here in this isolated job.
Our position is without esteem.
We’re socially challenged.
We’re society’s scourge.
We’re not exactly every woman’s dream.
Shepherds have a humble purpose.
Of our fate few people care.
Sometimes I wonder if God knows we exist.
If he does he’s forgotten where.
Nothing ever happens to a shepherd.
Life is boring as can be.
While exciting things occur all over the world, nothing ever happens to me."
Loneliness, weariness, and boredom characterized the life of the shepherd.
When it comes to the announcement about Jesus, who ever would have guessed that the shepherds would be the first ones invited to see Him. After all, this was the Messiah. This was the greatest birth of all time. If you were God, who would you have chosen to hear the heavenly pronouncement?
If it were up to us, most would probably seek out the celebrities of the day, picking one of the “beautiful” people.
I like how Max Lucado expresses it in The Applause of Heaven:
"An ordinary night with ordinary sheep and ordinary shepherds. And were it not for a God who loves to hook an “extra” on the front of the ordinary, the night would have gone unnoticed. The sheep would have been forgotten, and the shepherds would have slept the night away.
"But God dances amidst the common. The black sky exploded with brightness. … Sheep that had been silent became a chorus of curiosity. One minute the shepherd was dead asleep, the next he was rubbing his eyes and staring into the face of an alien."
The night was ordinary no more. I love the way Handel captured the joy and magic of the moment in the Pastoral symphony in "The Messiah". It is both powerful and stirring.
The angel came in the night because that is when lights are best seen and that is when they are most needed. God comes into the common man for the same reason. God often chooses to do his greatest work through people or things we normally think of as weak or unimportant. This is what Paul means in I Corinthians when he writes: "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.
To God, "nobodies" are "somebodies". To God, each one needs to hear the good news. The first names in the guest book belonged to the shepherds. When the shepherds got the news about the birth of Jesus, they did not come casually.
They moved on it. They hurried. This was such good news, one had to act on it immediately. They became the first guests to this miraculous birth. Something exciting was happening to a people that were characterized by nothing exciting ever happening.
God continues to identify with the poor. God absolutely insists that we reach out to the overlooked. When we do, we are reaching out to Him, and when we do not, we are resisting Him.
As it says in Matthew, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me… I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
The overlooked today come in many categories. They are the elderly, outcast, and homeless. They are the unappreciated and challenged. They are the untouchable, the addicts, and the diseased. They are those who are infected with AIDS. They are convicted felons. They are the battered wives and neglected children. Essentially, the overlooked are the ones we are overlooking.
Just as the shepherds were invited to worship, all are invited to do the same.
All are invited to “come and see.” By the grace of God, each one of us is welcomed.
While life is exciting for everybody else, the highlight of our day is sleep.
It’s lonely out here in this isolated job.
Our position is without esteem.
We’re socially challenged.
We’re society’s scourge.
We’re not exactly every woman’s dream.
Shepherds have a humble purpose.
Of our fate few people care.
Sometimes I wonder if God knows we exist.
If he does he’s forgotten where.
Nothing ever happens to a shepherd.
Life is boring as can be.
While exciting things occur all over the world, nothing ever happens to me."
Loneliness, weariness, and boredom characterized the life of the shepherd.
When it comes to the announcement about Jesus, who ever would have guessed that the shepherds would be the first ones invited to see Him. After all, this was the Messiah. This was the greatest birth of all time. If you were God, who would you have chosen to hear the heavenly pronouncement?
If it were up to us, most would probably seek out the celebrities of the day, picking one of the “beautiful” people.
I like how Max Lucado expresses it in The Applause of Heaven:
"An ordinary night with ordinary sheep and ordinary shepherds. And were it not for a God who loves to hook an “extra” on the front of the ordinary, the night would have gone unnoticed. The sheep would have been forgotten, and the shepherds would have slept the night away.
"But God dances amidst the common. The black sky exploded with brightness. … Sheep that had been silent became a chorus of curiosity. One minute the shepherd was dead asleep, the next he was rubbing his eyes and staring into the face of an alien."
The night was ordinary no more. I love the way Handel captured the joy and magic of the moment in the Pastoral symphony in "The Messiah". It is both powerful and stirring.
The angel came in the night because that is when lights are best seen and that is when they are most needed. God comes into the common man for the same reason. God often chooses to do his greatest work through people or things we normally think of as weak or unimportant. This is what Paul means in I Corinthians when he writes: "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.
To God, "nobodies" are "somebodies". To God, each one needs to hear the good news. The first names in the guest book belonged to the shepherds. When the shepherds got the news about the birth of Jesus, they did not come casually.
They moved on it. They hurried. This was such good news, one had to act on it immediately. They became the first guests to this miraculous birth. Something exciting was happening to a people that were characterized by nothing exciting ever happening.
God continues to identify with the poor. God absolutely insists that we reach out to the overlooked. When we do, we are reaching out to Him, and when we do not, we are resisting Him.
As it says in Matthew, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me… I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
The overlooked today come in many categories. They are the elderly, outcast, and homeless. They are the unappreciated and challenged. They are the untouchable, the addicts, and the diseased. They are those who are infected with AIDS. They are convicted felons. They are the battered wives and neglected children. Essentially, the overlooked are the ones we are overlooking.
Just as the shepherds were invited to worship, all are invited to do the same.
All are invited to “come and see.” By the grace of God, each one of us is welcomed.
May we be propelled and compelled by the Miracle of Christmas to connect with the overlooked, the forgotten, and the least, the lost, and the last. The Lord has kept open a very wide door this new year to be about His business, that is eternal.
In Christ,
Brown
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Praise and Worship Service
First United Methodist Church, Endicott .
Sponsored by Union Center UMC
6 PM Gathering - Coffee - Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship
Music: Jane Hettinger, Emma Bronson
Speaker: Pastor Bill Turner
