Behind Day 13 of my Advent Calendar is :
A SHEEP THAT’S BEING WATCHED – THOUGH NOT AT NIGHT
No one can deny that Christianity has a thing about sheep – and the Christmas story is no exception. And I’m not referring here to that all time classic ghost story by Charles Dickens in which Scrooge, the principal character and archetypal grumpy old man, goes about saying ‘Baa Humbug’ all the time.
No I’m talking about the Christmas story, in which, soon after Jesus is born, the angel of the Lord appears to a bunch of shepherds. This was not, as many a schoolboy has suggested, to act as a celestial TV remote to ensure that they watch Clive Myrie and not Tom Bradby read the evening news*, but rather so that he might deliver the day’s main headline himself.
And oh what a startling headline it was! Not only was it ‘good news’, something that is itself all too rare these days, but also, unlike most of the numerous electronic notifications I receive each day, it was news that everybody needed to hear.
And it’s news that everybody still needs to hear today!
So, just imagine for a moment how you’d feel if, having heard an alarming ping from your trouser pocket, you pulled out your phone and saw this displayed across the screen:
‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord’ [Luke 2:10-11]
That it was a bunch of shepherds who were the first to be told the good news of Jesus’ birth is a little surprising since, in those days, shepherds were considered amongst the least important members of society.
Don’t forget, the announcement that was being made here was a royal announcement, one that regarded the birth of a King. Because, contrary to what some people think, ‘Christ’ is not Jesus’ surname – rather it is his title, translating as it does as ‘God’s anointed one’. As such, the news that the shepherds were being told was that the long awaited Messiah had been born!
But then again, perhaps it’s not so surprising that the shepherds were the first to be told – for two reasons.
Firstly, God has a habit of choosing the weak over the strong, the humble over the proud, and the supposedly unimportant over the seemingly significant. A fact that, as the shepherds were soon to find out, is made all the more obvious in God chosing a manger and swaddling cloths over a king sized crib and regal robes.
That’s the kind of God he is – one who comes to us, not with a show of power, but with a show of humility.
And the second possible reason why the announcement was first made to the shepherds is this – who better than shepherds to first hear the news of the birth of a lamb?
For that’s what Jesus was, ‘the Lamb of God’ who would one day take away the sins of the world. For this was the job for which he was born. And it’s a job that he would one day achieve by dying on a cross – yet another apparent act of weakness which was actually quite the opposite, For it was the means by which God brought about a very great salvation.
A salvation that none of us should neglect.
*****
Jesus being the Lamb of God refers most specifically to the Jewish Passover and the last of the ten plagues that God used to force Pharaoh to let his enslaved people go. That plague saw the first born son of every Egyptian household die, save for those in homes where a lamb had been killed, its blood being spread on the doorframes of the house as a sign to the Angel of Death that is should ‘pass over’ that particular dwelling place.
As such the lamb acted as a substitute for the one who would otherwise have died, a sacrifice prefiguring that which Jesus would later offer by dying on a cross.
But there is an even earlier example of a lamb acting as a substitute for one who would otherwise have died. That story can be found in Genesis 22 and, despite it having taken place thousands of years before Jesus’ birth, parallels remarkably with Jesus’ own death. If you’re interested you can read more about it by clicking here.
*****
We’re going high brow for our music selection today – because you can’t go through Christmas without hearing at least a little bit of Handel’s Messiah.
* If you have no idea what I’m talking about here, and I accept that that is a distinct possibility, then just be thankful that you have a more refined sense of humour than I did because, growing up in a rural market town in the 1970s, I found the following couplet amusing!
‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night
all watching ITV,
The angel of the Lord came down and switched to BBC’
Previously from ‘A Christmas Countdown’:
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 12’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 11’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 10’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 9’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 8’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 7’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 6’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 5’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 4’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 3’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 2’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 1’, click here
Other related posts:
To read ‘The Sacrifice of Isaac – Law or Gospel’, click here
To read ‘Water from a Rock’, click here
Some musings 