ADVENT: Getting Ready for Jesus
12/18/2011 - Love
"I know my sheep and my sheep know me.
"He's not known in the city streets. There is nothing about his face or appearance that would draw others to him. He lives as one without a home, migrating from hill to hill. He is as weathered and hard as the stony hills of Judea on which he tends his flock. His sheep know him. They recognize his face, follow is voice, respond to his touch.
"In the morning he leads them out into green pastures. In the heat of the day he rests them besides still waters. In the evening he counts them, calling each one by name attending to their wounds with oil and comfort.
"At night he lies down in the mouth of the sheepfold, his body becoming the door, the only source of protection against the elements and enemies outside. His eyes are keen, able to scan the horizon by day and penetrate the darkness by night. His ears are sharp, alert to the sound of danger and the individual cry of the wandering sheep. His shoulders are strong bearing the burden of the young and the weak who can no longer bear the journey.
"It is to him the angels come. It is to him the message is given and he responds. Through the little town that knows not his name from house to house he moves bearing the burden of love, willing to share it with those who will listen. A Savior has been born. A shepherd who will give his life for his sheep. A lamb who will give his life for the shepherds.
For the child of the stable is the Shepherd of Love."
For the child of the stable is the Shepherd of Love.
This morning we wrap up our Advent series around the theme of love. And as we've done each of the last three weeks we're going to light a candle to represent that theme. We started out with the candle of hope and then the candle of joy and then last week the candle of peace and now the candle of love because God is a God of love and Jesus is the Shepherd of Love.
Shepherds play a key role in the first advent of Jesus. Every Christmas Play, every nativity scene, many of the Christmas cards we send and receive have shepherds on them. In fact, the first coming of Jesus was the best thing that ever happened to the shepherding profession. It gave them good press and dramatically increased their stock if not their pay grade! And Lord knows the shepherding industry needed a boost in Jesus' day.
Next to lepers shepherds were the most despised class of people in the nation of Israel. They were disdained and distrusted and had a reputation for being treacherous and thieves. They were social outcasts. If you were smart you kept a safe distance from shepherds back then.
Shepherds were considered ignorant men in the sense that they were often illiterate and unschooled in the Torah, the Law of Moses. But their biggest problem was that they were unclean. There was a saying in that day that "he who walks where the sheep walk has trouble keeping his feet clean." And that was true.
Shepherding sheep was a dirty job. And the shepherd didn't get many chances to take a bath. And being ritually clean in Jesus' day was a huge part of Jewish life. In fact, social status was divided between those who were considered clean and those who were considered ceremonially unclean, kind of like the nice list and the naughty list.
And shepherds were definitely on the naughty list because they had daily contact with the carcasses of animals and lots of unclean things like spiders and flies and bugs and rats and mice. And because they were unclean and because they had to watch the sheep 24/7 they never made it to the Temple to worship or even to the local synagogue to pray. They were not "church goers."
In our culture we would say that shepherds were far from God and completely unchurched. They would not be part of Valley View or any other church community which makes it remarkable to me that the first announcement of our Savior's birth was made to shepherds and not to respectable "church going, religious people!"
And so we read in Luke 2:8-20, And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." 13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14"Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests." 15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." 16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
The angel of the Lord appeared to these unclean, low life shepherds and they responded ... immediately! They hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger.
There's no evidence that the shepherds stopped on their way to Bethlehem to take a bath. They didn't go home to get changed and cleaned up. They didn't have a home to go to. Their home was the field. So they came to Jesus just the way they were, in their dirty, unclean condition.
And that's a lesson for all of us. We come to Jesus just the way we are with all our uncleanness and all our sin and all our doubt and confusion and brokenness and moral failure. That's the way people have always come to Jesus. Jesus is approachable for sinners like us. And the invitation to receive God's grace has always been "come as you are." Everyone is welcome!
So these unclean shepherds come to Jesus, leaving their sheep on the hillside to discover a little lamb lying in a feeding trough, the Lamb of God who will one day grow up to fulfill Isaiah's prophecy and take away the sin of the world.
Isaiah 53:3-7 describes Jesus this way, He was despised and rejected by others, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 4Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
God shows his outrageous love for us by sending his own Son to die as a sacrifice for our sins, but not a sacrifice performed by sanitized priests in a pristine Temple according to precise Jewish ritual. Instead, a brutal sacrifice inflicted by ruthless Romans who themselves were considered completely unclean. Jesus becomes a new sacrifice that breaks all the old rules and makes forgiveness of sin available to all people for all time, a sacrifice driven by love.
The apostle John captures it best when he writes in 1 John 4:10, This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Jesus is the Lamb of God who will one day give his life for these unclean shepherds and for you and for me. But Jesus is not only a lamb he's also a shepherd who will give his life for the sheep. He's the Shepherd of Love.
Jesus said in John 10:11,14-18, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep... 14I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me — 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.
Five times Jesus says, "I lay down my life for the sheep." Do you think that's important to him? Is that important to you? Has anyone else every laid down their life for you like that? No. And no one ever will. Because no one loves you like Jesus loves you. And no one can do for you what Jesus did for you on that cross. He took our sin so that we can be forgiven and have the hope and the joy and the peace we've been talking about in this Advent series.
No one loves you like Jesus and no one cares for you like Jesus. And on this final Sunday of Advent, just one week before Christmas, I want to remind you how much you're loved and cared for by that baby who was born in the manger so long ago.
The most well-known chapter in all of the Bible is Psalm 23. And in that Psalm written by David, himself a shepherd, we catch a glimpse of how much Jesus loves us and cares for us because he is our good shepherd. He is the Shepherd of Love.
Psalm 23 opens with, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Notice how David begins, the Lord is my shepherd. He's not "the" shepherd, or "a" shepherd, but "my" shepherd. David has a relationship with the shepherd. There's a connection there, an intimacy with God that's open to all those who trust Jesus as their Savior and enter into his sheepfold.
I shall not want. That doesn't mean David has everything he wants or that we'll get everything we want for Christmas or any other time. No. It means that David doesn't want another shepherd. He doesn't want anyone or anything else shepherding his life. Do you? I don't. Why? The rest of the psalm tells us why.
2He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake.
Sheep cannot survive on their own. They are defenseless and totally dependent on the shepherd for food, water, shelter and protection. Sheep are timid. They don't lie down easily. Everything has to be just right. They've got OCD.
They have to be free from hunger and thirst, insects and pests, but most of all free from fear. They won't drink from a rushing stream, they need quiet waters. And the good shepherd knows that and so he leads them there to refresh their souls. That's what Jesus wants to do for you. He wants to calm your fears and refresh your soul today. He wants to lead you by quiet waters.
He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake.
Just like the good shepherd guides the sheep up the narrow, rocky paths that crisscross the Judean hills so Jesus guides me along the right paths in life. I may not take them all the time, but he will not lead me down a wrong path. And he does it for his name's sake. Not because I'm such a wonderful person or a great guy. No. He does it because that's who he is. He cannot not do that. He refreshes us. He guides us. He gently leads us because his reputation depends on it.
It all sounds so inviting, doesn't it? Green pastures. Quiet waters. Mountain slopes. So serene. So peaceful. Like sheep grazing on a golf course. But you may be thinking, "That's not my life right now. That's not the world I live in. My life is falling apart? Where's the Shepherd of Love now when I really need him?"
David says, "I'm so glad you asked because I've been there many times."
Look at verse 4, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.
Tough times will come. We will walk through Death Valley at some time or another. Sooner or later everything we value will be taken away from us ... our health, our mind, our stuff, our loved ones, our life itself. But even then David says, "you are with me." That's the hope of Christmas. Jesus, Emmanuel, "God with us!" God for us! We are not alone in the valley.
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
That's a reference to table land, the high ground way up in the mountains where the shepherd would take his sheep during the hot, dry summer months. And there he would protect them with his rod and staff as they grazed, surrounded by wolves and other mountain predators. And when they were hurt or wounded he would gently anoint them with a never ending supply of olive oil.
6Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
"Nothing can take me away from the shepherd," David says. "Nothing. He will always be good to me. He will always be loving to me. Goodness and love will follow all the days of my life and one day when my life is over I will leave all my enemies behind and I will dwell safe and secure in my eternal home to live with my shepherd, the Shepherd of Love forever."
That's what the future holds for all those who follow the good shepherd. Are you following him today? Is Jesus your Shepherd of Love? I hope so. Do you want any other shepherd? I don't. And I don't think you do either. Stay close to him and this Psalm of David we become your Psalm too.
All along we've said that this Advent series has a backward look and a forward look. So I want end by looking forward and closing with these two verses from Revelation 7 that look ahead to the return of Jesus, the Lamb of God who is also our Shepherd of Love.
Revelation 7:16-17, Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat. 17For the Lamb at the center before the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Hebrews 13:20-21, Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.