Unto You
Have you ever felt like you don't fit in?
The Holidays, though glittering with family warmth, and so much potential connection. can also be a time where we can also experience waves of loneliness, distance, and disorientation.
"We choose this time [of year] because it is a time of all others when Want is keenly felt and Abundance rejoices." - Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
The high promises of the season can also amplify the opposite in us.
And a season where we're beckoned to lean in, we can find ourselves on the outs.
And this Sunday, we'll see a similar struggle in our main characters: The Shepherds.
These shepherds in Luke 2 were barn-smelling, far-away-from-family, blue-collar, painfully-ordinary Israelites.
They would be naturally self-deprecating, unimpressed with themselves, and likely despairing of their own spirituality...
Especially in the face of elitists like the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, lawyers, and other experts on their Jewish religion.
In other words, they were normal.
Insignificant.
Plain.
And yet, God decides to announce to them the birth of His Son.
It's not a quiet announcement either.
The fanfare God designs includes:
An angelic messenger declaring "do not fear!" (which is hard to do!)
The weighty glory of the Lord upon them.
Beaming light immersing them in brightness.
The Hosts of Heaven descending and declaring the mighty works of God.
And declarations of promises and signs that will reveal how real it all is in a baby. (Luke 2:8-15)
As the angelic hosts disapparate, the Shepherds are left shocked and shaky.
With their adrenals pumping, they run into the town of 300 (called Bethlehem) to search out this little, swaddled baby in a feeding trough.
The promises of the Angels still ringing in their ears:
"For unto YOU is born this day...
And, "This will be a sign for YOU..."
God must have his coordinates off.
The temple in Jerusalem is just 7 miles away--those angels must have aimed for the temple...
And misfired on our sheep.
But...the angel said YOU.
He meant ME.
He said, “For behold, I bring YOU good news of great joy that will be for ALL THE PEOPLE."
For these shepherds despite their low spiritual status would become some of the first to welcome Jesus into the world.
And the first of many unimportant people like us to come to the humblest King, and discover a glory we never deserved.
The same will be true in the Cross, the humble King, inviting closer those who never deserved it. Inviting us closer, those who never deserved it.
Let's witness more of His glory together this Sunday,
Pastor Dave