Come and See

 I love Luke 2 and count it as one of my favorite chapters in the Bible (one of many).  The Message (Bible) really captured my interest in what the shepherds experienced that night.  Luke 2:8-12 from The Message begins with, “There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood.”  That sets the scene nicely and helps us to understand what their conditions included.  They were camping. 

I don’t know about you, but I’ve done my fair share of camping in my lifetime and I am not a huge fan.  For one thing, it means you are away from a place you can call home and for another, you definitely have to ‘simplify’.  I don’t think it would have been any different for these sheepherders 2,000 years ago.  If they had tents or bedding at all they would have been rudimentary, and food would have been very simple. They would have been on foot and would have had to carry everything with them. 

The main concern the sheepherders had was not their comfort. It was for the sheep, because if they lost sheep they lost income. The Message makes it pretty clear what the sheepherders had to do: “They had set night watches over their sheep.” 

The sheepherders were taking turns watching for intruders and they took their job quite seriously. They had to protect the sheep at all costs.  There is something about a shepherd watching out for the sheep.  Sheep are helpless and without a Shepherd they don’t know where to go. The sheep rely on the shepherd for protection and care. 

On this night it was probably dark and quiet out in the field.  The shepherd in charge of the night watch would have been listening as well as watching.  Since they didn’t have flashlights they would have to listen to make sure other animals didn’t sneak in and kill one of the sheep. It was probably pretty peaceful until suddenly in the midst of the darkness, the sky was filled with light.  There were Angels everywhere. 

The light probably blinded the shepherds.  I’m not at all surprised they were afraid.  When you consider their culture, they had probably not seen anything that bright at night.  They didn’t have bright streetlights or fireworks.  There were no flairs or spotlights. Once night set in the only light they had was fire or a candle.   

For sure, the angels would certainly have been an enigma! The most difficult thing for 21^st Century Christians is being able to see scripture through the eyes of the writer and those they were writing about.  We have no concept of what their world was like. Their culture was nothing like ours. Even the religious culture was quite different.  There were clean and unclean, the “in” and “out”, the chosen and not chosen. For certain, the shepherds were not “in” religiously speaking.   

It’s interesting and I think no accident that the Shepherds were the first to be told.  Jesus called himself the ‘Good Shepherd’ later in John 10:11 and He talked about how the shepherd takes care of the sheep. By sending the Angels to the shepherds God is pointing us to the importance of the shepherd/sheep relationship. Isaiah prophesied 700 years earlier in Isaiah 40:11:

  "Look! Your God!"
Look at him! God, the Master, comes in power,
   ready to go into action.
He is going to pay back his enemies
   and reward those who have loved him.
Like a shepherd, he will care for his flock,
   gathering the lambs in his arms,
Hugging them as he carries them,
   leading the nursing ewes to good pasture.

The shepherds understood what it was like to care for the sheep the same way we need to understand how Jesus care for us. 

Certainly, by choosing the shepherds, God was making a statement. Shepherds were not royalty, or culturally acceptable, or educated or rich..The Angels invited common men to come and see. That means all are invited.  The shepherds weren’t asked what their credentials were, or if they had been “made clean” before the invitation came.  The Angels simply said, “come and see”. Come as you are and see. See the miracle and wonder of the Messiah. Come to the child who will save the world.  See why the Angels in heaven sing Hallelujahs!