Tangible
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 2:11-12, NIV
Talk about sensory overload! Those shepherds had a lot to process. But they were used to looking for signs. So I think the angel was speaking their language when he announced: “This will be a sign to you…”
Folks on the edges and living in the rough are used to looking for signs. They depend on signs. Signs are tangible expressions of something that has been there or of something that is coming. Signs hold promise. But signs are not always interpreted properly, their implications are not always understood. So, the angels have made an announcement and then have given the shepherds clue, a sign, of which child in Bethlehem is the child of promise.
Shepherds are people who know how to read the signs. They are tuned in to:
Signs of distress.
Signs of danger.
Signs of comfort.
Signs of safety.
Shepherds know a lot. They are a wealth of knowledge regarding the land, the seasons, the day, the night, the predators, the sheep, their diet, husbandry, and the desires of those who have hired them. When shepherds see the signs, they process for understanding, and then they take action.
But, shepherds for all their knowledge and all their labour, may or not have been respected by all. Their hard work brought them to the edges of life and death, their schedule, and their persistent days and nights in the rough, meant that their manners and ways may not have been in keeping with the social demands for purity and the Law.
I know we are in danger of romancing the shepherd. But that isn’t a new issue in Israel or the church. King David had been taken from the shepherds’ pen to the King’s throne (Psalm 78:30). In the beloved Psalm, God Himself is called the Shepherd (Psalm 23). As with kings and rulers, most people probably easily found themselves in a love-hate relationship with shepherds.
When you read the Christmas story how do you position yourself? Do you read it from the sanitized space of comfort? Or do you see the gritty, raw, insider – outsider, weak – strong, ruler – ruled, dichotomies?
God chose these people, on the fringes of society, to occupy the front row seats of His tangible introduction of His glory and love in the flesh of a child.
While God is in the history and the details moving the Messiah into Bethlehem, the experience of Mary and Joseph, and the shepherds is one in which other powers are shaping their lives. A foreign ruler wanted to count his people and thereby exert his powers to tax. The shepherds were doing work that was at the bottom of the food chain, but they were expected to risk their lives for the sheep. Mary and Joseph lacked the means to push somebody else out of a guest room so they could face the challenges of delivery in some measure of comfort.
God chose these people, on the fringes of society, to occupy the front row seats of His tangible introduction of His glory and love in the flesh of a child. All of heaven and the church must break out in an ecstatic utterance: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests! (Luke 2:14 NIV)
I believe it, but don’t you too find it challenging? God is still inviting people into tangible expressions of His life and presence today through His church, the Body of Christ. While it may produce fear to turn again to the fringes from which we came or to surrender ourselves to the revelation of God in Christ Jesus, He assures us, “Do not be afraid!” And so it was with the Shepherds who found Jesus just as they had been told: they became a sign of God’s grace to Mary and to others!
Oh, that we would be so occupied by Jesus the Christ that we too become a sign for people on the fringes to discover! Oh that the encounter of Jesus’ church, His tangible manifestation, would yield delight and praise!