There Were Shepherds Out in the Field

“And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field…” (Luke 2:8)

I want you to use your imagination for a few minutes tonight and try to envision this. …

Outside of Bethlehem, on the West Bank, south of Jerusalem, there are shepherds out in the field, doing what shepherds do. They are keeping watch over their flock by night.

And we don’t know the names of the shepherds, but we know there are at least two of them, and let’s just say, for the sake of example, that one of the shepherds is a believer in the promises of God, and the other shepherd is a cynic.

The believer shepherd is well-acquainted with the Scriptures, and the hope he finds in its pages has become his own hope. In humility he receives the word of God as the word of God, and he wants to conform his life to its truth, even when he is out keeping watch over his sheep by night. 

Every moment, he understands, is before the face of God, and he delights in God’s delight in his vocation. There are still lots of sheep in the world, and somebody has to tend them, and that somebody, at least here, outside of Bethlehem, on the West Bank, south of Jerusalem, one of those somebodies is him.  

The cynic shepherd is beside his believer-shepherd colleague, and he too is familiar with the Scriptures, except they have not taken root in his heart. He has heard the same promises as the believer-shepherd, but he hasn’t received them. He can put up with the believer’s hope and how much he talks about it, but only because he thinks he knows better. He thinks he has the truer angle, the more ultimate perspective. 

He thinks his own reason is the most reliable guide, and so the promises haven’t landed for him, but instead, each time he is confronted with them he rolls his eyes, at least on the inside, and he subtly scoffs at the idea that anyone could be so gullible as to think God will do what he has presumably said.

And that is, maybe, the bedrock difference between these two shepherds: the one has a category for grace, and the other doesn’t. And by grace, I don’t mean generic goodwill, but I mean grace as in God’s breakthrough activity for our good without our cooperation. I mean grace as in Monergistic intervention — God’s action in our world, whenever he pleases: 90 years old and barren — here’s a baby. The Egyptian army on your heels and an entire sea in front of you — then the sea parts.

God can do this sort of thing; God does do this sort of thing; and when we have a category for this, it changes the way we live. Because it means that tonight could be the night. There are things that God has promised that have not yet come to be, so today maybe. It could be today. 

When you understand grace, you know that everything is vulnerable to the act of God for our good, and so you can’t help but live looking forward. Hoping forward.

But see, where there is no grace, there can be nothing new. 

“My life is just an old routine; Every day the same [- - -] thing.” 

Get up, go to work, go home, take an Ambien, do it over again.

For the cynic, life is a loop … until it stops. It’s played out within an “immanent frame” which says all there is is only what you can know, and so, ironically, rather than this be a deeper perspective, it’s actually much more shallow. It’s small. Like the grinch’s heart.

So one shepherd keeps watch over the sheep smiling into the sky. The other shepherd can’t wait for his shift to be over, and he’s playing a game on his phone. 

And neither of them (nor the way they see the world) makes a difference for what’s about to happen. … on this night outside of Bethlehem, on the West Bank, south of Jerusalem.

I want you to imagine these shepherds. Imagine them doing what shepherds do, keeping watch over their flock by night. 

And then suddenly, like grace can do, there’s an appearance in the sky. And there’s a sound … which is the sound of a trumpet — and then their phones start blowing up with notifications and alerts. News agencies are weighing in; most aren’t sure what’s happening; but these shepherds realize that what they are seeing is not confined to where they are, but this is worldwide. This is happening to all the earth. A trumpet is blasting and people are being raised from the dead, because Jesus himself has appeared … for the Second time, just like he promised. Like a thief in the night. Like the groom who will have his wedding feast now. Jesus has returned.

There are still sheep outside of Bethlehem, and so there still must be shepherds. And just as shepherds witnessed the first coming of Jesus, there will be shepherds who witness the second. 

And that is what we have proclaimed during Advent: “Christ has come! Christ will come again!”

We believe that in the same way that the first Christmas was a surprise of grace, so will be Jesus’s Second Coming. We believe there is yet more grace that will breakthrough into this world. Surprising grace that is fulfillment grace. Grace just like God said, grace when we don’t expect it.

This is the category of grace that we remember at Christmas. 

During Advent we have recited the ancient hope of Jesus’s birth, and we have remembered our current hope in Jesus’s return. 

And tomorrow, on Christmas (and for the next 12 days of Christmastide!) we remember that just as the hope for Jesus’s birth was fulfilled, our hope in his return will be fulfilled.

And so for tomorrow, I pray that at some point, in between the gifts and travel and whatever else you have going in, I pray it occurs to you that as certainly as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we will celebrate his Second Coming. I pray it occurs to you that in his first coming Jesus came to be our substitute — he was born for us to die for us — but in his Second Coming, he won’t come to deal with sin anymore, but he will come to save those who eagerly wait for him. And perhaps, it might be, even again, on a silent night. That is our Advent hope. Even so come, Lord Jesus!