Truth Unites - Why Shepherds? Christmas Devotional

Episode Date: December 23, 2021

Here is a Christmas devotional about the humility of God displayed in  the incarnation, as seen through the angels' appearance to the shepherds  in Luke 2. Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

Each year at Christmas time, we hear the same Christmas songs. We hear the same Advent readings, some of us over and over again. And sometimes the wonder of the Christmas story can kind of be lost in the repetition of it. A couple of years ago, for some reason, the story of the shepherds in Luke chapter 2, the enunciation to the shepherds, the angels visiting the shepherds, suddenly got kind of lodged in my mind. And I started thinking about it more and more. And I started to wonder, why shepherds of all people?

Now, I'll put up a Rembrandt painting of this event. There's been lots of paintings of it. It's a very significant event. It's amazing how many Christmas hymns reference this event when you stop and think about it, almost all the best ones. And one of the reasons we can sense the significance of this is because you have a multitude of the heavenly host, which is relatively rare in the Bible, and we get from their words the famous hymn, Gloria and Excellesis deo, sometimes called the Greater Doxology.

So the question that suddenly hit me is, if you're going to have this significant event, this, you know, a multitude, like an army of angels going to make an announcement, why send them to just a couple of shepherds out in the countryside? Shepherds are on the lower end of the social order in first century Palestine. This event is kind of out in the rural territory. Why not send the news a little more broadly or maybe to some of the more important people, political, original? religious leaders and so forth. Something hit me that year as I contemplated that that kind of deepens in my heart a little bit each year at Christmas times. I think about just the wonder of the divine humility that is reflected in the Christmas story.

Just think about this. Already we have just unfathomable humility reflected in the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature. God became a baby. Just think about that. The one through whom the entire universe is made is sleeping among the donkeys. Absolutely astonishing. But as if that's not enough,

the very details of how God comes into the world also reflect humility. God enters into the world meekly and sort of unassumingly. So he could have come as a full-grown man. He could have beamed down maybe or something. I don't know. He came as a baby. He passed through the entire, God became a fetus, you know.

He passed through the entire human experience. He could have stayed in a rich palace. Instead, he's in a manger with the farm animals. He could have been born to famous or wealthy people. He could have been a prince or something. Instead, he was a carpenter. He could have come into an important city like Jerusalem or Rome. Instead he's out in rural Bethlehem.

And then what I've been reflecting upon this year is, you know, the angels know what's going on. They understand this is the miracle of the incarnation, God is a man, and they're rejoicing in it, but it's limited in the announcement. It's just told to some of the shepherds. Why the shepherds of all people? And it just is absolutely mind-boggling when you think of it. The most important event in the entire history of created reality. The event that triggers the new creation, the union of creator and creation. And nobody knows, or almost nobody knows. The shepherds know. I mean, what would it be like to be one of those

shepherds? It's amazing. You know, like, why us, you know? The newspapers are reporting other events. The important people of the world are scurrying about with their business, totally passing this by. There's no parade. There's no fanfare. But the angels get it. When I think about how non-pretentious Bethlehem is and the Christmas story is and our God has been to us in Christ, the prayer that into my heart is, it's actually very convicting and you think, who are we to ever boast in anything or to ever try to draw attention to ourselves when we see what our God has done for us and humbling himself so low. This pattern of Bethlehem should really change us. It also makes me ask, what are the shepherds and mangers today? That is to say, what are the things that,

this is God's pattern, I think. What are the things that show up in a package that's all too easy to reject and to even despise, but the angels are rejoicing in it. The world tends to overlook it. Pride will not see it, but it's in the eyes of heaven something to rejoice in. What our God has done for us is truly astonishing, and it should humble us to the dust. So if you're watching this during the Christmas season, I wish you a Merry Christmas. I wish you joy. And may it be that our lives are shaped according to the same pattern of what God has done for us in the birth of Jesus Christ.