12-26-2015

Good Morning All!!   

        Luke 2:9; “And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.”

   I would have been afraid as well.  If I was sitting out in a field late at night, just minding my own business, and an angel began to talk to me, I would have been frightened.  Most people I know probably would have been frightened.  It might help to have a handful there and not just me by myself but I think we would be afraid.  Most people are just plain ordinary people.  We have mortgages, student loans, car loans.  We have a handful of real friends and a family that sometimes works and sometimes is out of balance.  When we are in the paper, for a wedding or funeral, a few people will notice and a few more will recognize your name but that is pretty much it.  We will quietly go and most of the world will never know.

    The shepherds were about as plain and ordinary as one could get.  Many times, the shepherds were people trying to get lost in the shuffle.  They maybe ran out on a debt owed; they may have been in trouble with the Romans; they may have had a fall out with their family.  If they disappeared, only their fellow shepherds would have noticed.  Yet the angel appeared to the shepherds.  Yet this is part of the story.  The Christmas story, in all its grandeur, is made up of plain, ordinary things.  A manger, a baby, a first time young mother, a carpenter father, a small town, a few shepherds all are the integral human elements.  Nothing particularly special, we don’t know the names of the shepherds or even how many there were.  We just know they were people doing their job and, for whatever, God chose them to be the first to hear the wonderful news of the birth of the Savior.

     We can take comfort, even joy, in the fact that God chose the ordinary person to tell the Gospel to.  These were people who had fears and worries, concerns and the weight of being the excluded.  These were people who needed to hear the good news of Jesus.  These were people who were in need of the healing and the restoration into God’s family.  These were people who were in need of being released from the oppression of the world.  These were people a lot like you and me.  People who are often marginalized by the rich and the powerful; people who are in need but are often powerless are the people that Jesus came to give hope to.  Jesus came to bring healing and hope to all people in need.  He came for the ordinary and he came for the rich; he came for those whose spirits were broken to bring them the certainty of hope in the salvation given to them by the sacrifice to come.  Jesus comes for all people who are hurting, lost, confused or suffering.  Jesus comes for you, to give you hope.

Gracious Lord Jesus, you came down from all your glory to come and bring us hope.  You came to release us from the terror of the devil.  Because of your great love we now have peace that only comes from God.  Enlighten our hearts and enliven our faith.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret