Christmas - Why the shepherds?

Luke chapter 2 verses from 8 to 20: “There were shepherds in the same region where the Lord was born, who kept watch and kept watch over his flock by night. And, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.”

“But the angel said to them: Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy that will be for all the people, that a savior who is Christ the Lord has been born for you today in the city of David. This will serve as a sign for you: you will find the child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

"And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!"

"It happened that when the angels went from them to heaven, the shepherds said: Let us go, then, to Bethlehem, and see what has happened, and that the Lord has manifested to us."

“So they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger. And seeing him, they made known what they had been told about the child. And all who heard marveled at what the shepherds were saying to them. But Maria kept all these things meditating on them in her heart. And the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen as they had been told." Bless the Lord His Word, amen.

The narrative of the birth of Jesus Christ is not an ever-living, ever-renewed story but it is also a story of precision where every detail has meaning and purpose. Nothing is there by accident, like all good narratives, everything has intentionality, like a chemical formula that every minimum measurement has to be precise, it has a function. There can be no excess, there can be no inertia, there can be nothing that does not have a reason to produce the required result.

Likewise, the different passages that tell us about the birth of Jesus Christ all have a meaning, nothing is random, nothing is there by accident in all the accounts we have of the birth of Jesus Christ. Together they make a great picture of God's creativity, His intentionality, His love for humanity and this passage that we just read, and the passage in general of the birth of Jesus has all the elements of that great drama that we are talking about.

We see wise men who come from exotic countries in the Far East chasing a mysterious star that speaks of something thunderous and unprecedented that has to happen, we have angels that appear in the middle of the night and illuminate the entire landscape with their light in the middle of the night divine, we hear an edict from the Roman emperor that calls on all countries and all regions that are under the rule of the Roman empire to register, to register so that Rome knows how large and extensive are its properties, and the countries that are under its dominion, and how many millions of subjects does the great Rome have, and we have details as beautiful as two lovers, José and María who are there in conflict because José thinks that María has been unfaithful to him, and he does not know that María has received an announcement Extraordinary on the part of the angel who says that she will conceive a child despite being a virgin and all the pain that this causes, and as happens in great novels there is a mess there, a conflict act and how it will be resolved, and finally José receives a dream, a revelation from God that tells him: Everything is fine, you are simply a protagonist in something extraordinary so accept your wife and receive her because everything is fine, that is to say, it is a tremendously rich and tremendously dramatic drama, worth the redundancy.

And one of the most captivating aspects of this drama is precisely that appearance of the sublime angels to some humble shepherds, sheep shepherds, worth the clarification, and I want to focus on that for a moment. So let's zoom in and focus on the pastors for a moment. Again, a drama has intentionality everywhere.

Have you asked yourself: why pastors, specifically? Why did God choose some humble and insignificant according to men, shepherds to witness the birth of His Son? Why didn't God choose the politicians of the time or the religious leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees? why didn't he spread that news in Rome where it would have been much more advantageous indeed for it to be known that a King of all creation had been born? Why didn't he appear to the rich, a few millionaires there from Jerusalem to go there and do justice to the birth of the son of God? and these people would have been much more effective in spreading the word and validating the claims of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, they would have been much more appropriate for the greatness of the moment. However, the Lord appears to a group of humble shepherds.

Psalm 138 verse 6 gives us a clue about a possible reason, I see three reasons at least, there are many more, but I am going to focus on three reasons why God specifically chose shepherds for the revelation of the birth of His Son .

Psalm 138:6 declares: “For Jehovah is exalted”, great, and then one would expect Him to take it upon himself to be with the exalted as well, right? says: "and attends to the humble" because Jehovah is excellent, and attends to the humble, but to the haughty one looks from afar." God, the Scripture shows us, is always closer to the humble. As the theologians say, God has a preferential option for the weak, the humble, the worn out, the rejected by men. God approaches the poor in spirit, the truly simple-hearted person.

The Pharisees for example were too into their pride, they were too into their self-sufficiency, their righteousness supposedly provided by their actions of good works, their religiosity, they were too comfortable in their sense of self to be righteous before God and they rejected the population, the vast majority, these pastors could never enter a synagogue because they would be seen as impure. The work of a shepherd was seen by the Jews as impure work. The Egyptians too, many parts of the Middle East viewed pastoral work as absolutely despicable work.

However, the Lord did not go to the great ones because they were too sure of themselves, God went to the humble of heart, those humble shepherds who exemplified all that humanity rejected by the great ones on Earth who needed to hear that there was a God. who loves them and who justifies them.

The Bible declares in another passage: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." We have the parable of Jesus Christ, the Pharisee and the publican. The Pharisee was accepted by all as a good man, well behaved, fair, religious, respectable. The publicans were these collectors of internal rents who were abusive, corrupt, selling out the country, nobody wanted to know about them, and God could well have said: I'm not going to talk to that character. But the Bible says that when the two arrived before the Throne of God, what the Pharisee threw away was his knowledge, his personal justice, everything he did, his great vanity was displayed before God and his sacrifice died right there. The publican, aware of his sin, aware that he did not deserve to serve God or appear before God, said: have mercy on me, God has mercy on me because I am a sinner, and the Bible says that the publican left justified while the another, the Pharisee left without receiving forgiveness, the goodness of God, because God loves the poor in spirit. The Bible that to the contrite and humiliated heart what? God will not despise you.

And the Lord in all His Ministry always identified with the poor, with those who did not seem to deserve God's mercy. Plunder, blind Bartimaeus, those who lowered his companion through the roof, the woman with the issue of blood, on and on, and on, all of them did not truly deserve God's goodness according to men, however God took care of them and this was sometimes the cause of scandal.

The Lord was rejecting that pomp, he was giving us a new narrative that other things were going to allow us to get closer to the heavenly Father. He was rejecting the attachment to the world, to the material, to the vanities and the pretensions of men, he was providing a beautiful image and lesson for us of what we truly are and should be, we should be pilgrims on the way.

The Bible tells us that we are foreigners and pilgrims on Earth, we cannot be attached to anything, we cannot judge the world as men judge it, we have to see it through the eyes of eternity as God sees, and therefore when we do that, the high turns out to be low and the low turns out to be high, the one who does not deserve turns out to be very deserving of the Grace of God and the one who seems to deserve it all, God despises him because his heart is often filled with personal pride.

Now I think that we also have to clarify something: I think that sometimes we can go too far and say that God does not want rich people, God does not want educated people and intellectually developed people, we are not saying that, because the magicians who came from the east as we see were from a privileged caste, they were people of high lineage, they were people of the intellectual and political elite of that far east but they had something that distinguished them, a restless heart, they were inquiring into the cosmos because there was something in their hearts that told them that something was going to happen and they were vigilant, then we are going to talk a little bit about that.

So God has nothing against the rich, God does not have something against intellectually developed people, but He does have something against which often leads to a sense of self-sufficiency and God despises that, and goes where the humble are who many Sometimes because of their humility, their simplicity they have the ability to believe, they have the ability to sacrifice, give, get uncomfortable.

By the way: I take this opportunity to tell you something in advance so that when you see it you remember that you heard it for the first time, it sounded for the first time here in León de Judá, perhaps you have heard it: did you know that those magicians who were watching understood that something great was going to happen, something great was going to happen and that's why they were digging so much? I personally believe that something great is going to happen in this humanity in the coming times, I am not sure but I can tell you that God is preparing something and if I were one of those magicians I would already be looking around, and that is what I do , by the way, and we also have to be very vigilant because we live in pregnant times, times of great imminence, God is preparing to do something great in His creation.

I'm not talking about the Second Coming of Christ necessarily, but something big is going to happen in these times, get ready because it's coming, as those wizards who were there sensed that something great was going to happen and the world is already showing signs of that, everything that We see right now in this world, all the international political events, all these things in this very nation, there is something big that is happening in this humanity and we have to be vigilant like those intellectuals from the Far East. And for this reason God also rewarded them with a revelation about the birth of His Son.

Now, we have to understand this idea, right? that for us to be able to receive God's revelation in our lives, for God to speak to us, for God to make us part of His gifts, we also have to keep our hearts humble, we have to know that only by God's Grace we can do the things we do, we have to be merciful to one another. We have to love those who are sometimes not kind, we have to serve the humble people we meet, we have to be generous with our goods, our time. When we see people in need we have to be simple at heart.

We cannot believe: no, we are a great thing because we are evangelicals, because we are the Lion of Judah Congregation, we have to remain humble and know that it is by grace and only by grace that we can appear before our God. Let's keep our hearts humble, brothers, let's keep our hearts simple, and when we see someone fallen in any way, let's lift them up.

The Word says that: "If any of you is caught in a fault, you who are spiritual restore it with a spirit of meekness, looking at yourself, lest you too may fall." We have to be humble brothers as Christ was humble of heart, and we have to always ask the Lord: Father, keep us always well penetrable to Your Word, always recognizing that only by the Grace of Christ we are saved and we can handle the great mysteries of God. When we are humble then the Spirit of God can share His revelations with us too, amen?

I believe that one of the reasons why God chose these pastors was to give a sign to humanity that the Lord is interested in humble people, the simple-hearted, knowing that His Son has been born and that God wants to share His wealth with those who are humble of heart.

The second reason why God chose pastors was because they embodied the pastoral ministry of Jesus. They exemplified in their work, in their work something that the Lord was going to manifest in an eloquent and very powerful way.

You will remember that it was the same Jesus who said in John chapter 10 verse 11: "I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." We remember at this time that Jesus Christ was not only born but also died for our sins, but He was and is a shepherd par excellence. Jesus does indeed come, and he came according to the flesh from a lineage of shepherds.

King David was a shepherd before he became king. In fact, when Samuel goes to his father's house to choose the one who was going to be the substitute for King Saul David, he does not appear anywhere because he was there shepherding the sheep, and as a sign of fact, I believe, because the The Bible has details everywhere that he, David, was to be the progenitor of the Shepherd of shepherds, Christ Jesus, and there was a prophetic connection there between those two beings, and therefore the Lord identifies himself as a Shepherd of shepherds

Moses was also a shepherd, and he was going to shepherd an entire nation for forty years in the desert, he was going to take them out of the slavery of Egypt like a shepherd, and the Lord was doing as if pointing out that pastoral lineage that He incarnated.

Jesus identified His Ministry as that of a shepherd because this includes his qualities as a minister. Jesus is patient with His sheep but He is also fierce in defending them from the lion or the bear that wants to destroy them. The Lord is watchful with his sheep.

I remember the dream that brought us here to Boston and I remember the eyes of that lion that I saw above the firmament looking over the city, they were vigilant eyes, they were eyes full of authority, they were eyes that do not escape nothing and so is the Lord with His creation, vigilant with us His children, watches over us, guards us, protects us, always goes ahead of us like a shepherd guiding His sheep, prepares a place for us.

We remember that great Psalm 23: "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my distressers, you take me through places of delicate pastures, next to still waters you make me rest." The Lord is a great shepherd who goes before His sheep. And by inviting the shepherds to witness His birth, Jesus was declaring what His Ministry would be like, providing an image of what His relationship with us would be like for all eternity, since His pastorate, as we know, did not end with His earthly Ministry, He said: I am leaving but I will return to you and send you a comforter to be with you and in you. That ministry of the parakletos, the consoler, the great animator, the Holy Spirit directs us as the shepherd directs his sheep.

John 16:13 says, "But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth." How many know that the Holy Spirit is guiding our life? What if you ask Him for advice, that if you depend on the Holy Spirit for any need, He will not leave you without advice, without help?

The Lord did not simply leave, there are philosophers who speak about deism, which is a philosophy that postulates that God created the world, created the universe, created the cosmos and then moved away from it to run alone, God is not like that. God creates and also shepherds, God calls us and also guides us towards all truth, God enters us into his family and then he installs himself as the parakletos to guide us, and we are not devoid of advice, brothers, we are not devoid of perspective when things happen like the ones we pointed out a little while ago: a great loss in our home, an economic setback, a difficult situation, who are we going to turn to but the Spirit of God, the parakletos, the Holy Spirit, the Shepherd of shepherds? The Lord is a shepherd who guides us and we can be sure, brothers, that this shepherd will be with us every day until the end of the world.

The image that best suits us to retain in our relationship with God is that of a shepherd and his sheep, always use that image of God as his shepherd, that is why he says: "Jehovah is my shepherd, I will lack nothing." A shepherd does not abandon his sheep in times of crisis, you know? that pastor is always with you guiding and protecting you in your life.

The image that we should not have of God is that of a tyrant, a severe ogre, an owner with a whip always ready to whip us when we violate his law, but rather that of a loving, firm, safe shepherd with his sheep, if he disciplines them when it is necessary, but above all he loves them, he knows them by name, the sheep trust him, he goes after the lost one and leaves the ninety-nine as that famous parable of the Lord says, he goes after the broken leg, the one that was needy and gives her his full attention, and brings her back into the fold again.

If any of us at this time has strayed from the ways of the Lord, remember that the Lord is there vigilantly looking for him with His hands outstretched always. The Word says: I am at the door and I knock, and if anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will enter, and I will dine with him, and he with me, the mercy of that Shepherd is always available to bring you back to the fold.

The Lord does not leave his own, the Lord is always attending to all His needs and I want on this day that we also remember the pastoral ministry of Christ Jesus, and that with any situation we need perspective, clarity, a frame of reference, strength for our lives let us turn to Christ Jesus in prayer, let us seek Him brothers and let us always stay close to the Shepherd of shepherds, the Shepherd par excellence, Christ Jesus.

So we see that the Lord chooses the pastors because first, there is a special love that He has for the weak, the simple, the humble of heart who recognize their need for Him. Secondly, he chooses the pastors because they remind us that the Ministry of Jesus is essentially a ministry of caretaker of souls, of sustainer of spirits.

And finally, there is a third reason why the Lord chooses these shepherds and that is, I find it in verse 8 of that passage that we read at the beginning. It says in verse 8 that: "The shepherds kept watch and kept the watches of the night" they kept watch and kept the watches of the night. Didn't I tell you that there is a lot of intention and a lot of detail in this passage? One of the practical reasons why the shepherds were chosen is that they were among the few awake and dressed at that moment when the Lord was born, available to go immediately to where the child was.

I understand and in fact, I don't know if I'm saying this out of moment, you know that I have been organizing a pilot trip to Israel lately and by the way, if anyone out there feels like the Pastor rejected them and did not invite them to the trip to Israel it is because this is an experimental trip, those poor people who are going with us are guinea pigs (laughs), no, don't be scared, we have worked hard to ensure you an excellent trip and we are very excited. But you know, this is a way for us that we want to provide our Church in the future with a way to travel to Israel very comfortably, very cheaply and with a first class trip, and we have been working on it, so get ready for the next class who will go in the future after this first class. If they see that one of them doesn't speak to me, it's because things didn't go so well for us (laughs), no, that's a lie.

But, no, we are doing this as an experiment and we are very grateful to the Lord for the way he has blessed us. Now you wonder: what happened to the Pastor, did he lose the thread of the message? no, there is a connection, because I have been reading about some of the places that we are going to visit and one of those places is Bethlehem, and even today in the Bethlehem tourist guides you will find that still in the 21st century in Bethlehem There are shepherds tending their sheep in the hills around the city of Bethlehem.

These shepherds are generational, they have been shepherd families for centuries, and with all that I have had to study and read about Israel these days I now have a much more developed understanding of these passages, and certainly there were those shepherds and they were in the hills.

The connoisseurs of Scripture and archeology say that at that time precisely the shepherds, for reasons of time and all that, were out at night taking care of their sheep, and they were on heights watching over them, they were awake at night guarding their sheep of the bear, of the ferocious beasts, and they were ready, they were not sleeping like perhaps the rest of the Jewish population at that time. God loves to notify His events to people who are prepared and who are ready, you know?

How many characters in Scripture do we see that God meets them when they are working? For example, we have there the story of Gideon who is in a cave there threshing wheat hiding from the, I think they are the Philistines, the Philistines are the bad guys in the movie so if it wasn't them it should have been (laughs), who? were? The Madianites (laughs), too, those were other terrible villains, they didn't like each other at all, as the Puerto Ricans say. And the fact is that there was Gideon diligently threshing the wheat in a cave hiding it from the Midianites to save his family. Peter was with his nets finishing fishing and there the Lord calls him and finds him.

I can't tell you how many there are in the Scripture that God finds them when they are working, do you know why? because the Lord hates the lazy, if you are lazy repent right now says the Word. The Lord likes diligent people, those who are working, those who are watching. I want that when the Lord comes into my life he finds me working, he finds me watching, he finds me doing His Will, and that is how we all have to be brothers too. We want to call ourselves in this Christmas season to be vigilant people.

The Bible says: "Blessed is the servant who when his master comes finds him working", the Lord likes people who are like these shepherds doing their work and that is why the Lord gives them this revelation, because they are present, they are available, they are watching, they are prepared to do what the Lord needed them to do. He wanted witnesses, He did not want the birth of His Son to go unnoticed and He wanted those humble on Earth to go there, so He called them, sent angels and told them: come because the Son of God has been born and He wants you to witness it. .

Brothers: I want to encourage all of us this year to be diligent people, our lamps must be lit. How are you going to survive the challenges of this year? I encourage you to stay vigilant through prayer, through the study of the Word, through fasting, through study here in the programs that we offer. Brothers: invest in your spiritual growth, invest in the things of the Lord.

Sunday Christians only: it is not enough, we have to be consumers of the Word of God in our homes. We have to be attentive in our devotional life, always growing, we have to serve the Lord, share the Gospel with others.

What did the shepherds do? once they witnessed the birth of the child he says they told others what they had witnessed. This year brothers we are going to share the Word of God, we are going to invite others to come to the house of the Lord and listen to the message of salvation of the Gospel, we are going to be bearers of the good news of the Gospel, we are going to give to the Lord of our goods, we are going to defend the Kingdom of God, our Church so that nothing is missing in this house. Of all the things that we have to do as a Church, all the tasks that God has for us, more than ever brothers we must be people delivered to the Lord. We cannot have limits to what God wants to do with our lives.

Brother: break walls this year, walls between what is mine and what is God's, between my comfort and service to the Lord, between my dream and coming to my Church, we have to serve the Lord. How beautiful you look here this afternoon, and you know that when you see that snow and that closed sky, and that sky like yesterday, you fear and say: will the people come the next day? but it's good that you are here, you would have missed a beautiful concert, you would have missed the Word of the Lord, you see? you have to be diligent brothers, you have to be daring in the Name of the Lord.

The Bible says it: "Look, I command you to strive and be brave, because I will give you all the land that the soles of your feet tread on." These pastors won the lottery, amen? they won the lottery because they were vigilant, they were doing their job. When the Lord arrives he finds them doing their work.

Here a note says: "God can speak to us more easily and we can hear him more clearly in the solemnity and holiness of His temple than in a disco, while we study the Scriptures more than when we watch television, when our minds are cleansed of defilements." of the world and filled with the Word of the Lord.” God can listen to us more like this in the stillness of the night, in the sublime moment of meditation and silence, God found Moses like this in that stillness and silence of the desert and there he gave him the great revelation of his life.

On this Christmas, brothers, let us not look at the Christmas drama only as an empty, vacuous sentimentality, but as a coded revelation of the person of Jesus, His love for the poor and the weak, His eminently merciful and pastoral character, and we too have to imitate Him, and finally His appreciation for those who are diligent in investing the gifts and blessings they have received from God.

I want you to ask yourself this as our musicians join us, absorb this question or these questions into your life right now: Is my character and my life worthy of Christ revealing Himself to me? Is humility and poverty of spirit toward God, and love for my neighbor the hallmark of my life and character? could Christ identify with me as he did with the shepherds? Would I remind the Lord of His own character and ministry as the pastors reminded Him? Am I a type of the shepherd's love, his patience, his concern for lost souls who wander like sheep without a shepherd? Finally, am I an alert, vigilant, attentive, diligent Christian, using the talent that God has given me, putting it to work, restless to be used as an instrument for the advancement of the Kingdom of God in my Congregation, in my work, in my home, in my neighborhood, in the place where God puts me to move? Am I alert, vigilant, attentive? Am I a good steward of the Lord's goods?

When there are tasks that God wants us to fulfill, as with pastors, are we willing and prepared mentally, spiritually? Are we in the right places so that the Lord does not have to look too far? because we are always there, you will always find someone from our Church at the right moment, when He needs a word of testimony to someone, a sharing of the Gospel, an offering to offer to someone in need, a word of advice or encouragement to a person, a phone call to a sick person, a visit to a home in need, an invitation to someone who is lonely, can the Lord find at that moment a person who says: Lord, here I am, I am present, what do you need me for? ? and is our prepared?

Like the five virgin brothers, are we watching with our lighted lamp, our well-prepared oil enough to give light when the bridegroom arrives at the house, to receive Christ at His Coming?

If Christ came right now we would be ready, we would receive him with joy in our hearts because we do not have to hide, because we are prepared. That is my request for you this afternoon: that your heart be propitious soil for the birth of Christ Jesus.

Lower your head for a moment. There are few days in the year that are so propitious for a person to invite Christ into his life as Christmas Day, the Christmas season, Christ is born at this time and can be born in our hearts, and for the rest of our days you could remember that I gave my life to the Lord on Christmas day, and that He was born in my heart currently on a day like today, and the Lord only wants you to be humble enough that you need it, that for your own justification you cannot appear before God on judgment day, that you are frail, brittle and that you need an Almighty God to walk this dangerous path of life, which becomes more dangerous every day as we enter the 21st century, and you need Jesus You need the Son of God, that Shepherd who wants to accompany you every day in every situation that you may face, the Lord wants to extend His Hand to you, He wants to walk this path with you.

Do you have the courage, the humility to say: Lord, I need you, I open my heart to you, I invite you in, come into my heart, O Christ? Will there be someone who wants to invite that humble Christ who invites himself into your life right now and tell him: Lord, come into my heart? I would like to pray for you this afternoon, if you want to raise your hand I would love to accompany you to the feet of Jesus Christ and tell you: welcome to the family of God.

Fine, amen. Father: thank you because Christ was born to man, Christ was born to humanity, Christ was born in our hearts, this Church is surrendered at the feet of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Thank you Jesus because You came from Your Throne, You descended into this world to leave us the most beautiful story of all stories, a God who becomes a man to make possible a perfect relationship with the Father, we adore You Lord.

Allow this Christmas as never before to be aware of the meaning of Jesus Christ, of His absolutely central and essential role, and above all that when we leave here this afternoon, we will do so completely ready to testify to the world that it is no longer necessary to live under the slavery of wrong because the Lord has made deliverance possible through the blood and birth of His Son Jesus Christ.

I bless this people Father this afternoon, thank you for all the beautiful things that we have witnessed and declared Lord, and keep us in these next few days very close to You Lord, and we thank you for your faithfulness, in the Name of Jesus, and the God's people say: amen, brothers God bless you, the grace and peace of the Lord be with you all, amen.