But Why The Shepherds?

Luke 2:8-20: And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone around about them, and they were very much afraid.

And the Angel said unto them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, and this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a Manger."

And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill toward man."

And it came to pass as the angels were gone away from them into heaven. The shepherds said one to another, "Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which has come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us."

And they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a Manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told unto them.

If some Madison Avenue public relations firm had been in charge of announcing the birth of Christ, this record would be considerably different. Because something of this magnitude deserves a sponsor. One who can afford to pay the bill for the announcement certainly deserves a great deal of advertising.

I think if Madison Avenue had had the power and had been in charge, they would have gotten a lot of important people cablegrams off to Caesar. And announcements certainly made down in Egypt, over in Greece. But God didn't handle it that way.

In fact, as you read your Bible, you find that many times God does the thing that we wouldn't do. You know why? His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are far above our ways. We'd make a mess of the whole thing. If God had given to some Madison Avenue firm a couple of years to prepare the announcement for the birth of Christ, it probably would have been very commercial, very materialistic, very unspiritual.

Instead, God chose to make the first announcement of the birth of the Savior to a group of anonymous shepherds, and we asked the question why?

There may be many answers to the question, but I'd like to suggest four possible reasons, and from these reasons try to glean some spiritual truth and some lessons for our own heart.

#1 - Because of Their Position in Society

I think first of all, God announced the birth of His Son to shepherds because of their position in society. "Well, so what? They were shepherds."

Do you realize that shepherds were looked upon as outcasts in Jewish society?

When you study the Bible dictionaries and the Bible encyclopedias, you find that there were many different vocations in the Holy Land, and each of them had its own particular status. If you were a goldsmith or a silversmith, you were on this level of the social ladder. Even fishermen had a rather high standing among the Jewish people. Scholars, of course, stood at the very top, but shepherds were down at the bottom, particularly among the priests and the Pharisees.

Of course, you know why shepherds, generally speaking, were unclean. The kind of work that they had to do rendered them both physically and religiously unclean. Now a lamb, a sheep, is not an unclean animal, but the kind of services, the kind of work that the shepherd had to do would usually keep him ceremonially unclean.

Furthermore, these shepherds were living out in the fields. They weren't living at home and taking the flocks out at night and then going back in the daytime. They were abiding in the fields. They were living out there. Many, many times the shepherds would be away from the temple, away from the synagogue for weeks and months at a time.

And of course, according to the Pharisees and some of the priests, if you didn't fast twice a week, if you weren't down at the prayer meetings, if you didn't have this and that, you were outcasts. And shepherds were looked upon by the Jewish people as being unclean and outcasts.

Now, not to the point of a leper, not to the point of a criminal, but a shepherd simply did not have that standing, that status in the society back in our Lord's day.

You know what that says to me when I read this? I say, "Dear Lord, how amazing that you bypassed the palaces in Jerusalem and the scribes in their ivory towers and the Pharisees in their long robes and you went to the common people, the outcasts, the rejected ones."

What does this tell me? It tells me that the gospel is for anybody. It doesn't matter what your status is. It doesn't matter what your background is. Jesus Christ came for the outcast. He came for the rejected. He came for the sinner.

Now if God had sent the angels to the palace or to the temple, some people today would say, "Well, you see, the gospel is for the upper crust. The gospel is for the educated. The gospel is for the elite." But God said, "No, I'm going to send my announcement to shepherds," common people, rejected people, outcasts.

And you know what? That's the way it's been ever since. "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence."

So the first reason God chose the shepherds was because of their position in society. They were nobodies. They were outcasts. And yet to them came the greatest announcement that has ever been made in history.

#2 - Because of Their Profession

But there's a second reason. Not only their position, but their profession. What did shepherds do? They took care of sheep.

Now you and I know that all through the Bible, God's people are compared to sheep. "All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Now here are these men taking care of sheep, and the angels come and say, "We've got good news for you. The Lamb of God has been born. The good shepherd has come into the world."

Don't you see the beautiful picture there? These men were taking care of sheep, and God said, "I'm going to announce to you the coming of the Good Shepherd who will give his life for the sheep."

Furthermore, and this is very interesting, some Bible students believe that these sheep that these shepherds were caring for were the temple sheep. That is, these were sheep that were being prepared for sacrifice in the temple. And it's very possible that these shepherds that were out there caring for these flocks were caring for sheep that would one day be offered as sacrifices in the temple.

And to them, God says, "The Lamb of God has been born. Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."

How fitting! How appropriate! Men who are caring for sheep that will be offered as sacrifices, and God says to them, "The final sacrifice has come. The Lamb of God is here."

So their profession prepared them for the message.

#3 - Because of Their Practice

But there's a third reason, and that is their practice. Not only their position and their profession, but what they practiced.

Now, what were they doing? Verse 8 tells us they were abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. They were watching. They were alert. They were awake.

You see, a shepherd had to be alert. He had to be watching. Wild animals would come. Thieves would come. The sheep would wander. A shepherd had to be on guard constantly.

And these men were keeping watch. They were alert. They were awake. And to men who were watching, God gave the announcement.

You know, all through the Bible, God says to his people, "Watch. Be alert. Be ready." Jesus said, "Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."

These men were watching, and to watching men came the announcement. I wonder how many people today miss the blessing of God because they're not watching, because they're not alert, because they're not ready.

But these shepherds were watching. They were alert. They were ready. And when the angel came, they were prepared to receive the message.

#4 - Because of Their Perception

And then there's a fourth reason, and that is their perception. Not just their position, their profession, their practice, but their perception—what they saw and how they responded.

Notice what happened. The angel came and gave them the message. And what was their response? Verse 15: "Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which has come to pass."

They believed the message. They acted on the message. They went immediately to see the Savior.

Now, these were men who were used to working with their hands. These were not philosophers. These were not theologians. These were men who lived in the real world. They had to make decisions. When a wolf attacked the flock, they couldn't sit down and have a committee meeting. They had to act.

And when the angel gave them the message, they didn't say, "Well, let's think about this for a while. Let's form a committee. Let's study this." No, they said, "Let us now go."

They were men of courage, men of integrity, and these were men of decision. That's the kind of men God's looking for. It's the kind of women God's looking for—people who will say, "All right, God told it, I'll do it."

They were accustomed to obeying. They weren't accustomed to giving the orders. They were accustomed to obeying. That's what God's looking for today.

Well, they went out and they saw the Saviour. They found Mary, they found Joseph, but most of all, they found that babe. And when they'd seen it, they became wonderful witnesses. A witness is somebody who tells what he's seen and heard, not what he thinks, but what he's seen and heard. "Here's my experience."

And wherever they went, they'd take some sheep into the temple and they'd say, "Did you know the Savior's been born?" "Tell us about it." "Where'd you see him?" "Out in Bethlehem."

I wonder if any of these men ever met Jesus Christ later on. Every year this time you read and reread Henry Van Dyke's delightful little story, "The Story of the Other Wise Man." If you've never read it, read it. Purely apocryphal, but a good story.

I wish that somebody who had the gift of writing would write the story of the shepherds 30 years later, old and retired, perhaps living in Capernaum or Jerusalem, and they meet the Lord Jesus. They had seen him as a baby in the Manger. I wonder if any of them went past Calvary.

But this much I know: They believed. You say, "Well, why wouldn't they believe? Angels have told them."

We have the Holy Spirit of God today who's telling people. We have a whole Bible that spells every bit of it out in beautiful detail and people still won't believe.

They didn't believe because the angels told them. They believed the word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. They were honest men and when they were confronted with the evidence, they said, "This has to be true." And they went, and they worshipped the Savior.

I suppose one reason why people have such a hard time trusting Jesus Christ today is because they're unwilling to become nothing.

The shepherds were lowly men without social status, and they were the ones that God called. Now, no matter what your social status may be today—and nobody really cares—your spiritual status, if you're unsaved, is just like everybody else's. You're too short. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Angels are not coming to proclaim the gospel, but those of us who've experienced the salvation of Christ are coming and sharing it with you. The shepherds did not have a Bible. We now have the Bible. The shepherds were all alone in their decision. There weren't 500 people to help them. Today we have millions of Christians who believe on Jesus Christ and they've been born again.

You know what I'm saying? It's much easier to be saved today than it was back there. Believe in a baby? A poor baby in a Manger? You got to be kidding. No, they believed.

Today I say to you, I don't want you to believe in a baby in a Manger, or even a Savior on a cross. I present to you tonight a risen, glorified, ascended Lord Jesus Christ, one who wants to save you now.

If we'll just get poor enough, he'll make us rich. If we'll just get low enough, he'll lift us high. If we'll just put away our own superiority of wisdom, he'll really make us smart. If we'll only admit that we're sinners, He'll save us.

Heavenly Father, thank you that down through the years you have called those who have been rejected, those who were sinners, those who really had nothing of themselves, and you saved them.

I pray that tonight there might be those here who will admit how bankrupt they are, how needy they are, and come and trust the Savior.

We ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.