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12.14.08

3rd Sunday in Advent

SERMON SERIES: FACES AT THE MANGER

PART 3: SHEPHERDS AND WISE MEN

LUKE 2:15-20; MATTHEW 2:1-12

• The Pageantry of Christmas
• Finding Meaning at the Manger
• There once was a time in my youth when I was not much in the mood for Christmas
• I felt a lot like Charlie Brown in A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Overwhelmed by the commercialism of the season, especially when his dog, Snoopy, decorates his doghouse to enter the neighborhood Christmas Lighting Contest, Charlie Brown cries out in desperation, “Does anyone know what Christmas is all about?”
• In answer to his desperate cry, Linus begins to recite the words of the Christmas story from Luke 2:  “And there were shepherds out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks by night…”
• On this particular Christmas, I felt the same way
• It seemed to me the whole world was missing the point
• In this season of joy, I found little to be joyful about, and the promise of “Peace on earth, goodwill to all” gave me no comfort
• Everyone seemed to be so hung up on the glitz and glitter of Christmas—it’s easy to get sucked into all that superficial stuff—and they were missing the mystery and the majesty of Christmas
• I was not at all interested in getting or giving Christmas presents
• What I was seeking was a Christmas presence—I wanted to experience in a very real way the birth of the Savior into the world, for sure, but more specifically, the birth of the Savior again in my heart and life and in the hearts and lives of those I loved
• I’m glad to say that I found what I was seeking that year
• It was a Christmas Eve in the early 70’s when I really connected with the mystery and the majesty of Christmas
• It happened in a little church about a block from my home
• That wasn’t the church I was a member of, but a church I would visit on occasion for midweek Bible Study and Sunday evening worship
• On one of those visits, I was railroaded into being a shepherd in their Christmas pageant
• Their Sunday School was small and they didn’t have nearly enough kids, so I was drafted to help fill out the cast
• With the mood I was in that year, I didn’t feel much like doing anything, especially being a shepherd in a kid’s Christmas program
• When I was asked, my mind said “No way!” but apparently my mouth said “yes”
• It was that pageant in that tiny little Christian and Missionary Alliance Church that made Christmas real to me, for the first time in my life, I think
• The Drama of that First Christmas Night
• There’s something about children (and adults as well) parading around the church in bathrobes carrying makeshift shepherd’s staffs and wearing aluminum foil crowns to portray the Wise Men that really brings the meaning of Christmas home
• There are few things in this life more moving than the simplicity and the majesty of a children’s Christmas Pageant
• And having worked with children since then, it’s often a wonder that it all comes together…but it always does!
• And the message and the meaning of Christmas is proclaimed very loud and clear
• With the difficulty we have pulling together a Christmas program, what must it have been like for God to orchestrate the real thing?
• What was it like to pull together all of the forces of nature, all of the circumstances of history, and all of the people involved in the drama that unfolded on that night?
• Yet, as Scripture affirms, at just the right time, when everything was ready, when the world was waiting in anxious anticipation, God’s Son was born!
• The whole world came together on that holiest of nights
• Coming Together In Bethlehem
• The Wise Men
• The Shepherds and the Wise Men are integral parts of this pageantry we call Christmas
• While technically not a part of that first Christmas night, we include the Wise Men in the pageantry of Christmas because they play a prophetic role in the Nativity story
• Matthew calls them Magi, which we commonly translate as “Wise Men”
• It is tradition, and not Scripture, that identifies them as kings, probably because of the lavishness of the gifts they bore
• And it is from those gifts that we have surmised that there were three
• Who were these men, and where did they come from?
• Matthew is the only gospel writer to tell of their arrival and all he says about them is that they’re “from the East”
• This is the only time they make an appearance in the gospel story, and we never hear from them again once they returned to their homeland
• The ancient historian Herodotus identifies Magi as a priestly caste of the Medes and the Persians
• Strabo and Plutarch were also familiar with Magi throughout the Mediterranean region, so it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where they came from
• In fact, two other Magi are mentioned by name in the book of Acts: Simon Magus of Samaria (9:9-24) and Elymas of Paphos on the island of Cyprus (13:6-11)
• While some of the Magi were associated with magicians and sorcerers, most of them were not
• They were a very learned group of men who were highly commended for their research into the facts of nature
• So these Magi who visited Jesus were certainly scholars and definitely astrologers, for it was through their study of the stars that they knew a profound event was happening
• We really don’t know if they were kings, but they certainly were people of wealth and influence
• And we know for certain that they were foreigners—they were not part of God’s chosen people Israel
• Their presence in the pageantry of Christmas is actually a fulfillment of prophecy
• It’s surprising that Matthew only mentions the prophecy about the birthplace of Jesus and not the ones that relate to these visitors and their gifts
• Numbers 24:7 speaks of a star that will arise from Jacob
• Isaiah 60:3 says, “Nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.”
• And Psalms 68 and 72 both speak of kings bearing gifts
• As we look into the faces of the Wise Men, we see a foreshadowing of the gathering of all the nations into the glorious kingdom of God
• Their presence reminds us that Jesus Christ is the Savior of all peoples and nations and tongues, and that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; for you are all one in Christ.” (Galatians 3:28)
• Secondly, they are a testimony to the power and authority of God
• If, indeed, they were kings, they come to bow before a power greater than their own
• Humbly, they recognize this Child as “King of kings and Lord of lords,” as they present their royal treasures—gold, the gift of kings; frankincense, a priestly spice; and myrrh, a spice used to preserve the body in burial
• In their gifts they honored this God-Child as King and Priest and Savior
• And through their worship, they demonstrate that truly, “every knee shall bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians:10-11)
• The Shepherds
• What can we say about the shepherds?
• Certainly, they stand in sharp contrast to these royal visitors from the East
• The Magi were very rich and these shepherds were very poor
• The Magi represent the elite of society while the shepherds represent society’s outcasts
• Shepherds were considered lower than slaves, and they were forbidden by Hebrew law to testify in court because the testimony of a shepherd could not be trusted
• Yet, it was to shepherds that the angel proclaimed the news of the birth of a Savior
• It was shepherds who witnessed the multitude of the heavenly host giving glory to God
• Shepherds were the first ones to seek him out, the first to bow before him in worship, and the first to share God’s good news with others
• Without a doubt, these shepherds represent the world’s poor, those who are down-trodden and outcast and marginalized
• They worship there representing all who are abused, misused and thrown away by society
• Their presence there depicts the special place in the heart of God that God has for such people, for it is with people such as these that Jesus would spend his greatest amount of time
• Perhaps they were the first to hear because they were so desperately in need of good news and more willing to accept it and believe it than others would be
• On the faces of the shepherds, we see hope, anticipation and expectation because the long-awaited salvation has finally come for them
• But there is another reason why there are shepherds gathered at the manger in Bethlehem
• They represent the model by which this Child will choose to live his life
• To a people lost in the darkness of exile, having been abused and led astray by their leaders, God promises a shepherd who would gather all who are scattered and who would shepherd his flock with justice—Ezekiel 34:11-16
• And later on, this Child would identify himself as the Good Shepherd, who calls his own sheep by name and through whom they would gain access to the presence of God
• Shepherds are important to this Nativity drama because through them, God boldly declares that all of God’s promises are now fulfilled
• The Central Focus
• The purpose of this cosmic, life-changing event, this bringing together of opposites, this gathering of the world in an obscure little village and in a humble stable, was so that we might not miss its significance
• While Mary and Joseph, the angels and the animals, the shepherds and Wise Men are all important, they are not the central focus
• The central focus is this Child—this Child who is unlike any other child who has ever been born
• No other child was ever conceived in such a miraculous way—no other child had his birth proclaimed by angels—no other child has ever had his birth celebrated in the way this Child does
• That’s because no other child is the One and Only, holy Son of God

• All of these people gather in the Nativity Scene to point us to Jesus
• They gather there so we might not miss his significance
• In the face of this Child, we see the face of God, a face humanity has longed to see but was forbidden to see until Jesus was born
• And this is the face we need to see most of all
• Now we can see God clearly, we can see God face to face, and we now know exactly what God is like
• That’s the mystery and the majesty I discovered on that Christmas 38 years ago
• As I knelt as a shepherd beside the manger, it occurred to me that this Child was born for ME!
• Until we realize the significance of his birth for ourselves, we miss the significance of his death and resurrection for the world
• Only when we realize that we do need a Savior, only when we can come in awe to kneel at his side and offer him the gift of our life will we ever experience the mystery and the majesty of Christmas
• And only then will we know what joy, peace, and love really are