12-16-2013

 Good Morning All,

     Luke 2:8; “And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.”

    The little hamlet of Bethlehem was bustling.  Imagine a town of a couple of hundred now with everyone who was in any way related to someone from Bethlehem was there.  If you were the son of a man whose grandfather was from Bethlehem, you were there.  Everyone went to there city to be taxed.  Everyone except the shepherds.  They were out in the fields tending their sheep.  They didn’t have to do the census because they didn’t count. 

   The lowly shepherd was not someone who the world worried about.  It was a job that no one paid attention to and, if a man wanted, he could disappear while being a shepherd.  They stayed pretty much to themselves either in the fields or in the pens and nobody usually bothered them.  They were nobodies.

    Which, to the wisdom of the world, makes it all the more amazing that the first people who the angels and the heavenly host told about this fantastic birth of a Savior; was to shepherds abiding in their fields keeping watch over their flocks.  Maybe, just maybe, they were the only people still awake at that time of the night.  Maybe the angels were just really polite and didn’t want to disturb the good folk of Bethlehem or Jerusalem; maybe.  Far more likely, the shepherds were the first to hear the good news of the birth of a Savior because they were in the most need of hearing a little good news.

    The message to the shepherds was by design; Jesus came to seek and to save the lost and to heal their wounds.  The message was to those who needed to hear it the most.  So it went to those who society viewed as worthless.  But their value was high to God; so high that He sent Jesus to minister to them, teach them, to heal them and to die for them in order to redeem them from their sins.

    You and I are the shepherds.  The world will look at us and see no value, see nothing to get excited about.  But God sees value in you and value in me.  He loves you so much that he spared absolutely nothing in order to get you back.  You matter to God.  Whether you are trying to hide or just got lost in life’s shuffle, God knows your life.  He knows your pains, your fears and your worries and through a baby that grew to be the God-man who died to redeem you; he gives you hope.

     The evil of this world will always challenge us but it will never prevail.  It will always try to marginalize us and push us aside.  Yet God keeps us up front with his grace.  He came to the world to save you; trust in his Word.

Gracious Father, we thank you for coming to all the caves and the hillsides seeking the lost and the hurt.  Give us the strength to trust in your glorious Word.  Keep searching the caves and the hillsides, keep finding the lost and the wounded.  Use us to help you accomplish this task.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray.  Amen

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret