Witnesses to Christ's Birth: Shepherds
by Dr. Graham Standish
Luke 2:8-20
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!’
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
I want you to stop and reflect for a moment. Take time to think about the places you are most likely to experience God, not including church. Picture places that you’ve experienced God’s presence.
I’d be willing to bet that most of you named somewhere in nature—the mountains, the beach, your back yard, a cemetery, in the woods, along a river, a sunset. There’s definitely something about nature that opens people to the Divine, the Holy, and to God. The places I’ve always been most touched by the spiritual have been in nature. For example, over the course of 35 years our family went to a lake 180 miles north of Toronto. It was there, sitting on a dock at midnight, looking at the stars, that I often sensed God’s presence most tangibly. Something about the stars helped me to feel as though God was there.
Another place that I felt God tangibly was two years ago when Bruce Smith and I led a worship conference at a retreat center in the hill country of Texas. Even though the temperature hovered around 94 degrees, I went for a 4-mile hike through the woods every afternoon. It was beautiful. And twice I came across a small family of armadillos. When I first saw them it scared the giblets out of me. But then I became fascinated with them, especially since they didn’t really care that I was there. They just kept rooting for whatever it is that they eat. Then one little fella put his paws on my toe, then stood up on his hind legs with his front paws against my shin, and sniffed me. He must have thought that I was no good to eat because he (or she) got back down and sniffed the rocks around me. For him (or her) our encounter was nothing, but I was in awe. I never expected to see armadillos. It felt like God had given me such an incredible gift in those woods, and I sensed God smiling.
Why is nature so good at helping us experience the Holy? I believe the answer is fairly simple. Nature inspires awe. It causes us to recognize the greatness of God’s creation while at the same time making us seem small in comparison. We aren’t made to feel small in a bad way. Nature makes us feel small in a way that makes us as though we are part of something great and majestic. I think that this is what those great cathedrals of Europe do. They are awe-inspiring because they make us feel small, but also safe in God’s great sacred space.
Also, nature helps us experience the Holy by reconnecting us with our source—with creation and the Creator. When we are out in nature, we sense God’s presence because we know that God created everything.
Finally, nature helps us experience the Holy by opening us to what is beyond. Nature helps us realize that there is always more than we can possibly take in. For example, when I look at the stars in Canada, I’m reminded that we are on a planet circling one star among 16 billion in our galaxy. And I’m reminded that our galaxy is one galaxy among 16 billion galaxies. Reflecting on that, I realize just how great and beyond anything I can imagine God really is. I am awed by how more there is to the universe, life, and existence there is than I can ever imagine.
We don’t talk much about awe nowadays, but awe is essential to gaining a real sense of God’s presence with us and in us. People who have no awe have no sense of God. The Old Testament talks about awe a lot, although most of our Bibles translate the term as “fear of the Lord,” as in “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” I think “fear of the Lord” is a bad translation. It should be translated as “awe,” as in “Awe in the face of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
I think the shepherd’s connection with God through nature has something to do with the angel (probably Gabriel) appearing to the shepherds to announce Jesus birth, rather than to the kings, the magistrates, the temple priests, or the rabbis. It’s not just that the shepherds were out in nature. It’s what nature did to them that prepared them to hear the angel and to find Jesus.
How much do you know about ancient shepherds and their situation? To really get an appreciation for our passage it helps to know something about shepherds. First of all, they were considered nothing in the eyes of Jewish society. They were among the lowest ranks of society. Why? Because they had to tend to the sheep all the time. They were considered to be dirty. Their exposure to the sun often caused them to get skin conditions that others thought of as demonstrating sin. And their commitment to the sheep often left them unable to worship at either the Temple or the synagogues. As a result, they were discounted by the culture. But this had a spiritual benefit. Among the sheep the shepherds learned humility. They never had large egos that got in the way of them being open to God. They considered themselves to be nothing, but the result was that they were much more open to God. They had no power, so they were open to God’s power.
Second, their connection with nature caused them to live a life of awe. They were able to experience God in the hills, the sun, the moon, the stars, streams, valleys, and the sheep. They were awed by nature, and their awe created the conditions in which they could be both terrified in seeing the angel, while simultaneously wanting to hear everything the angel said. And their awe led them to be willing to follow.
Finally, they didn’t over-think their experience, but were open to the Holy. Think about us today. Whenever we have a spiritual experience we tend to try to analyze it from all directions. Perhaps part of that analysis is religious and theological, but we’d also try to do a psychological, pragmatic analysis, wondering if we were losing our minds. We’d test the experience against what everyone else says is reality, meaning that people living in reality don’t see angels. We would question the experience, but the shepherds accepted it.
Have you thought much about what gets in the way of our experiencing God? For a lot of us our problem is that we’re the complete opposite of the shepherds. We are all important in our own eyes, both individually and as a culture. We’re a culture of egos, and it’s hard to be open to God when our collective egos are so large. The result is that we don’t spend much time connecting with the divine in nature anymore. Before the 20th century, much of our culture lived amidst nature, whether that means in farming towns or villages and cities where nature was much closer. Today few live amidst real nature, and we’re poorer for it, although I don’t know what the answer is. I know that for me part of the answer is taking walks around Hereford Manor, a local lake in the area. For some of you it is boating or fishing on Lake Arthur, or walking and biking the trails of Moraine State Park.
The problem for most of our culture is that our lack of connection with nature means that don’t look at life with much of a sense of awe. In fact, we Americans are seldom awed. We’re too busy celebrating our greatness to be awed. Or we’re too busy trying to run the world to be awed. Also, we Americans are so well educated that we over-think God and the Holy. I believe that this is the reason so many young adults forget about God in college. They live in cocoons in which their food, shelter, and entertainment are provided for, and so they are free to think of life in a way that’s disconnected from reality. They can entertain thoughts of a world without God or religion because they are disconnected from any sources of awe. Also, college is a place of thinking, analyzing, and rationalizing, which makes the conditions right for over-thinking. Thus, spiritual and theological thinking is diminished.
The result of all of this is that it can be hard for us modern Americans to truly become open to God. So, here’s my question for you: What would it take for you to become more like a shepherd in your life?
I’m not asking what it would take for you to tend sheep. I’m asking what it would take for you to become a truly humble person, a person shaped by awe, and a person open to God in all things? The answers to these questions will offer you a path to the experience of God.
Amen.
