Submitted by Pastor David Wynn, Tarkio Christian Church

After a series of 24 Sundays defined simply as “After Pentecost,” most churches around the world are now embarking on a new journey.

It’s called Advent, and we celebrate these four Sundays before Christmas focusing on those wonderful characters who are the very core of “The Christmas Story.” Advent is such an exciting time of anticipation and preparation for the “Coming of Jesus.” We put up a tree in our church and our homes. Some of us decorate the whole house inside and out, and it’s always a delight to drive around and see all the Christmas lights at least once during Advent. We start buying stuff and wrapping stuff and baking stuff and preparing stuff, so that when Jesus finally arrives our Christmas celebration will be special and memorable.

A prediction from the Old Testament as recorded by the prophet Daniel evokes the vision of the “Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.” In the first century “keeping watch” meant literally keeping your eyes open and staying wide awake in order to respond quickly to sudden changes and threats. In the first century the guardian was the shepherd. In our earliest recorded days of the land that would be known as Israel, shepherding, the nomadic lifestyle of those who traveled from place to place finding forage for their flocks, was not just accepted, it was acclaimed. All the leaders in the early church were from shepherding stock. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all nomadic shepherds. Keeping watch at night, keeping an eye out during the day, was the “situation normal” for generations.

Things changed, as they always do. Ironically it was the agricultural lifestyle of the Egyptians, those who captured and enslaved the Hebrews, which initially made “shepherding” seem like a second or even third-class lifestyle for their captives. After Moses led all of God’s Chosen people out of Egypt and they eventually settled into the “promised land,” a distinct distancing began between the religious hierarchy, the head priests, Pharisees and Saducees, and the old time nomadic lifestyle of shepherds. Suddenly tending sheep was shoddy. Being homeless and “on the move” in the first century became suspicious, not too far removed from those who fall into that category today.

In Luke’s Gospel account we are told that the first persons who hear about the coming of this “son of man,” this Messiah from God, are shepherds. Not priests in the temple. Not the mystics and elders of the synagogue. Not learned rabbis or their students. But shepherds. People who camp out all the time, people who bathe none of the time, people whose job it is to watch out for the welfare of creatures who are definitely prone to succumbing to all the dangerous temptations that surround them. By the first century the status of being a shepherd had become categorized as in the same class as being a tax collector, or an unclean outcast. They were either despised or mistrusted by all those who had “risen above” to become city dwellers.

So isn’t it amazing that part of our annual Christmas story declares that shepherds were the first to receive the announcement of this heavenly event? The Messiah is at last revealed on earth. And the Messiah is first revealed to . . . shepherds? Instead of bringing in a mighty and military Messiah to cordon off and clean up the riff-raff of the world, God sent something spectacularly different. Instead of choosing to show off raw power, God chose to engage humanity, to relate with us instead of giving us marching orders.

Against all odds God sent a baby. The Messiah, the one who will determine our life everlasting, is being celebrated as a tiny, helpless baby. And this infant is first announced to and observed by those who have no standing or political pull whatsoever. I’m sure that at first even the shepherds found this message unbelievable. How did the angels then convince these shepherds and prove what they are saying is true? The Heavenly Host proclaimed to them . . . “This will be a sign to you – you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” The first miracle of Christmas is that the shepherds took the word of midnight angels, trusted the signs, and wandered away from their flocks and found a small stable in Bethlehem. There they were amazed.

They did not just journey from fields of sheep to a small home in Bethlehem. These first witnesses journeyed from a place where they were outcasts to a place where they were the first to gaze upon the blessed redeemer who would save us all. The lowest became the highest. The lowest enjoyed the highest privilege of being made new by the presence of Jesus as a child in a manger. “Wow, what a gift.” I invite all of you these four Sundays in Advent to be among those most blessed as the shepherds were that most holy of nights.

Whoa, what just happened?  No way! Who, me? Wow, what a gift indeed!