Jesus Comes for the Humble

At Christmas, God's Child gave up the majesty and beauty of heaven, to come down to this earthly, broken world.
Consider the person God chose to bear his Child in human form - Mary, likely a teenage girl from a poor family.  Mary had little in what we consider advantages for a teenager - education, things,- but she had faith and a willingness to serve.  That's all that one needs, to be used by God - a trust in God and willingness to serve.

Look at whom God's angels first announced the divine birth to - the shepherds.  Really!?  Shepherds?
There had been a time, centuries before, when shepherds were good, honest, upright people.  Maybe you're familiar with the Good Shepherd of Psalm 23.  That was during Israel's good days.  The priests were also called shepherds, those who cared for Israel's spiritual needs & represented the people before God.

But as the years went by, Israel's shepherd-priests were not always faithful.  In fact, by the time one gets to the Old Testament prophets, shepherd-priests were criticized for their faithlessness & misleading the people. Jeremiah 10:21 says, The shepherds are senseless and do not inquire of the Lord; so they do not prosper and all their flock is scattered.  Jeremiah 23:1-2 says, “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. ² Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the Lord.

Ezekiel 34:2 says, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock?

By the time of the New Testament, shepherds could not enter the temple, because living out in the fields with the sheep, they did not keep the Jewish laws of cleanliness.  Because they were seen as untrustworthy, they were not allowed to testify in court.

Yet, when it came time for God to announce the birth of his Son to the world, God sent his angels to shepherds out in the fields - amazing & ironic!

Perhaps you have felt or done faithless, dirty or untrustworthy things, like the shepherds.  The great news is that God's Son has come for people like that.  The message of Christmas is for lowly, humble people whom the world looks down upon.

Then look at the setting in which God's Son was born - in the stable (a barn), a place where you find animals and manure.  Not a place for a royal child to be born.  A manger is a feeding trough for animals -not the place for a royal Child!  You'd expect to find God's Child in a majestic place, a place fit for a king, not an animal in a barn.  When you go out to the barn, you don't expect to find a child in an animal feeding trough, much less the newborn Son of God!

The whole scene seems so mixed up.  Or is it?
Is it possible that God specifically chose this scene for his Child to enter the world?

Instead of announcing his Son's birth to kings, presidents or the news media, God sends his messengers to the lowest of the lowly, the shepherds.  God doesn't announce it to a full crowd in the temple, or even at a college bowl game.  No, God chooses some of the humblest people on earth, in a dirty, earthly setting.  The whole scene shouts HUMILITY - Mary, shepherds in a pasture, a manger in a stable. 

God's making it clear that his Son is coming for lowly, humble people.  No, Christmas is not about being the best, or the brightest or the biggest or the loudest.  No, Christmas is for those who are lowly, humble, faithful.  Maybe events in the last year or two have humbled you, and perhaps you feel lower than you've felt in a long time.  If that's true, then Christmas is for you.

God's sending his Son to earth at Christmas, was God's way of pursuing his people, because God longs to have a relationship with everyone, including you.

Mary was a humble servant of God, who was willing to serve and be used.
The scene of the manger in the stable was a humble setting for God's Son to be born.
God's angels announced the royal birth to lowly, humble shepherds who accepted the message & went to Bethlehem to see & worship the newborn Jesus.
God sent Jesus to those who are humble.  Jesus comes to the humble.

The question for each of us is, do we have the humility to admit that we cannot overcome our sins on our own, that we need help from a Higher Power.  Do you have the humility to bow down before Jesus as the shepherds did?

O come let us adore him; o come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.
Let us bow our hearts & heads before the newborn King.
Come & worship, come & worship, Christ the King!

God Loves to Repurpose People.

It seems like repurposing (or re-purposing) things has become a trend.  There are so many pictures of old pallets being repurposed for deck furniture, walls, among many other uses.  Back in the Great Depression, people didn’t throw many things away because they never knew when they’d discover a way to repurpose it.  But back then, it wasn’t called repurposing; it was reusing things.

When I was a junior higher back in the 70s, I got bored during the summer.  We had an old, rusty coaster wagon that was just sitting around the garage because my siblings & I had gotten too big for it.  A friend of mine had a go-cart that was so cool, and he even let me ride it a few times.  So I decided to repurpose (again, I’d never heard of that word back then; I thought I was just reusing) some old stuff laying around the garage.  I took the wheels & axels off the coaster wagon, & attached them to a piece of plywood the appropriate size.  I used a 2 by 2 piece of wood and some clothes line to make a crude steering rod that could control the direction of the front wheels.  The only problem was that we didn’t have an extra small engine around, & I didn’t have the mechanical ability to put it on my crude go-cart anyway.  But we’d take turns pulling it uphill a block, & then riding it down the street to our garage.  It was great for going downhill.  I could never think of a way to make a brake; so we just had to put our shoes out on the pavement to slow it down to stop.  Not the safest, but the hill wasn’t that steep; so braking wasn’t a problem.  At that point, none of us in the neighborhood had yet been on a fast amusement park ride; so riding that crude co-cart was a thrill.  When my older brother Jim saw what I’d built, he was impressed with how I’d reused some old stuff from the garage to make something we could ride on like that. 

In the 80s, some of us started recycling as a way to help the environment, which was a form of repurposing some things.  I heard of a guy in Iowa who’d figured out a way to recycle used plastics into a 4 x 8 sheet the size of a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood.  He’d made a few simple hog enclosures for them, and began selling those to farmers.  He developed it into a small business.  As the years went on, more people began finding new ways to reuse or repurpose used material into a new use.  So it’s fairly common now, to find new recycled things for sale in stores.

God is also in the repurposing business.  God specializes in repurposing people.  God could take a rejected shepherd (Moses) and remake him to lead God’s people out of slavery and guide them through the desert-wilderness.  God can take a shepherd boy named David, and reuse him to kill an agnostic giant and become a famous warrior-king.  Take another look at the disciples.  Jesus repurposed a fraudulent tax-collector, a terrorist (Simon the Zealot), and uneducated, undisciplined, crude fishermen like Peter and Andrew, James & John.  After the resurrection and the Spirit’s arrival at Pentecost, these men with dubious backgrounds, became the first missionary-pastors to a society similar to ours.  They went out and taught God’s Word, healed people, escaped from the authorities who could not get them to stop talking about this Jesus of Nazareth.

Are you feeling over the hill or washed up?  Tired of the daily grind?  Do you feel like a used up plastic bottle?   The good news is that you’re a prime candidate for God’s repurposing.  God specializes in repurposing people who humbly feel like they have nothing to offer.  Matthew had cheated so many Jewish taxpayers that the priests and religious authorities never bothered to say anything to him.  Simon the Zealot was part of a group, the Zealots, who were so patriotic that they assassinated those who publicly disagreed with them; how could God have anything to do with a murderer like that?  Those fisherman never received any attention from the religious crowd because they were just blue-collar, working-class people.  No one would have predicted that these guys would be chosen by God’s Son to be sent out as God’s ambassadors. Yet God saw their potential and repurposed them to become his representatives to do amazing things in the world.  If you think you’re not worthy of God’s call, you actually are ready for God’s repurposing. 

Scoundrels in the Stable

            

In Jesus’ day, shepherds were thought of as shady, disreputable, untrustworthy, irreligious, but not good.  A shepherd was sneaky, shifty, and likely a thief.   Shepherds were despised by religious leaders, since living out in the hills, they were unable to wash regularly and observe the ceremonial and dietary laws.  Shepherds were not eligible for judicial office.  They were not permitted to be a witness in a court because they were so untrustworthy.  They were not allowed to enter the temple.

                                   

For Jesus to say, “I am the good shepherd” sounded strange, like a contradiction or oxymoron.  Imagine someone today saying "I am the good thief," or "I am the good drug dealer."  Maybe Jesus identified with shepherds because He too was scorned by the establishment.  Jesus knew what it was like to be despised, to have people watch you with squinty, suspicious eyes. 

           

Somehow it seems only fitting that the first visitors to see the Lamb of God were shepherds.  They hustle to the stable and are first in line to touch the hem of heaven.  God communicated first to the shepherds in the fields.  Not the pure and holy, not the high and mighty, not the Bethlehem ministerial association, but the sneaky, low-life shepherds.  I guess God sees the good in the worst of us and the bad in the best of us.  I guess we should think twice before we look down our noses at present-day shepherds.

Shepherds were the first to hear the Good News of the birth of God’s Son.  Shepherds were the first to visit and honor the baby Jesus in the stable with Mary and Joseph.  If God could allow scoundrels like shepherds in the presence of his Son, I guess there’s hope for people like you and me.

            

Christmas With the Shepherds.

It’s finally here.  The event we’ve been waiting for – the birth of Mary’s son, Jesus.  At first, Mary and Joseph had their baby all to themselves.  Then Luke 2 says that an angel appeared to the shepherds in the field, announcing the birth of God’s Son.  So the first visitors to the humble birthplace were shepherds.

In ancient Israel, shepherds were dirty, unclean and thus not allowed to enter the temple.  Shepherds were not trusted; they were not allowed to testify in a court of law.  Shepherds were looked down upon by good, upstanding Jews.  You wouldn’t want your daughter to marry a shepherd, or even bring one home.  A shepherd could follow you into a revolving door and come out ahead of you – that’s how shifty they were.  If a shepherd appeared in your front yard, you’d look around to be sure that everything was still there.  Shepherds could not be trusted.

Yet God’s messenger trusted the shepherds with the message of Jesus’ birth.  Shepherds were the first to hear the great news of a Savior born for all the world.  Think of someone that you look down upon, someone who’s not on your level.  Then tell yourself that God’s angels first told people like this person; they were the first to hear the Christmas news.  If we want to see what God is doing, maybe we need to pay more attention to people like the shepherds.  Let’s spend part of our Christmas with someone like a shepherd.  

Enter the Humility Gate

As Jesus traveled toward Jerusalem and the cross, knowing the suffering that He would have to endure there, He submitted his desires and will to his Heavenly Father’s will.  That is true humility. 

Philippians 2:6-8 describes the humility of Jesus “who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!”

If you had the choice of living equally with God in heaven, or being asked to sacrifice your life for others on earth, which would you choose?  If you deserve to be treated as royalty, would you accept being treated like a servant without complaint?  How do you respond when treated poorly?  That’s why humility is one of the hardest things for us humans.

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was built on the site where Jesus was born. Every tourist must stoop to enter it.  The main entrance is so low that only a small child can enter it without bending over.  The door was designed to prevent medieval warriors on horseback from riding into the sanctuary to slaughter Christians there.  That danger no longer exists, but the low door has not been raised.  You must bow down to enter the place where the Savior was born as a lowly human.  This is known as the “Humility Gate.”  It reminds everyone who enters, no matter what their status in life, that they must enter into the presence of God humbly. 

During these weeks before Jesus’ suffering and agonizing death, we need to get down on our knees or bow our hearts humbly before the Master.  Have you ever considered God’s humility through the Son’s life?   God’s Son became human in a poor, humble scene in a barn or cave, not in a castle or fine medical facility.  Jesus served sinners and unloved outcasts like Zaccheus.  He called himself a shepherd - an occupation that was looked down upon by middle-class folks because shepherds were dirty, ceremonially unclean, and thus not allowed to worship in the temple.  Shepherds were not allowed to testify in a court of law, because everyone knew that shepherds were untrustworthy thieves.

Jesus was the "Good Shepherd" who associated with the despised, the leper, the prostitute, fraudulent tax collectors and the Samaritan.  Jesus reminds us, “those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Matthew 23:12)  Like a slave, He washed the disciples’ feet, which was the lowest act of service that one could imagine.

During these weeks of Lent, may we enter through the Humility Gate, as we recall the Master’s humility.