|
|
|
 / FUMCHOMESTEAD.ORG/ 12/24/11 Sermon - Christmas Eve Service
|
This Will Be A Sign
Scripture: Luke 2 : 1 - 20
|
|
|
 For those of you joining us tonight, First church has gone back 9 months and taken the journey with Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. We have looked at this journey through the lenses of archeology, geography, and Biblical scholarship. And tonight, we reach the climax of the Biblical accounts, the birth of Jesus! Part of the reason that we love to hear the Christmas story is that it sounds so wonderful, like a fairy tale: Angles flittering around the sky and a babe born in a manger with cattle-a-lowing and the little drummer boy at the baby’s side. How often have we relied on a good Christmas Carol sing to give us the facts…the story does sound more like a fairy tale than a reality doesn’t it?
Well tonight, I’d like to take you to Bethlehem to know more about what it was like there. By the time we get to Christmas Eve, Mary had made the trip the 9 day trip to Bethlehem twice, once in her first trimester and once in her ninth month with child when she and Joseph had to travel back to Joseph’s hometown, Bethlehem for the census. If you were visiting Bethlehem in the first century, there really wasn’t much to see. The town was made up of the working class, shepherds, farmers, millers, and bakers. Because of the wheat and grains that were grown, Bethlehem meant, The House of Bread. Of course you would find sheep and lambs there too. Truth is though, you wouldn’t go to Bethlehem unless you had some specific business there. There was nothing to see. Well, hardly anything. If you were a peasant or middle class, you may find yourself in Bethlehem gazing out over the landscape where you would see  King Herod the Greats’ (self named mind you), man made mountain. It towered 400 feet above Bethlehem and at the top was the Herodium, Herod named it himself; complete with guest houses and Roman baths for his guests and a home theater that could seat 900 people. And from the edge of the Herodium, you could look down and see the little town of Bethlehem. Now I tell you this to show you that that there is a contrast in the Holy Land. Jesus the King of Kings and Lord of Lords was born not in a palace but a garage, a place where people who came far parked their animals. Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem and ended up in one of these garages after their 9-10 day journey. You are meant to see that Jesus was not in a palace in a stable. This account in Luke would have been appalling to anyone who was reading it in the first century. Jesus born in a stable; laid in a cattle trough? My friends our story tonight is a story of the King of humility; things and palaces never met anything to Jesus! Not even in His birth. Well, Luke gives us three verses of the birth and twelve of the shepherds. So let’s consider the shepherds.
 Shepherds. They have no worth. In fact because they spent so much time with sheep and goats, they were considered ceremonial unclean and no priest would ever allow them entry into the temple. They are for the most part uneducated. Shepherding was a lot in life. Some of us may think it is sweet that God invited the shepherds first to come to see Jesus. There is nothing sweet about it. What sort of story is this? In fact, it is senseless and moreover the night shift was actually hired by the day shift. So, these shepherds were nobodies! First century hearers and readers of this account must have been shaking their heads saying, “You have got to be kidding!”
But God wasn’t kidding! A shepherd is known to connect to nature, to have time to think. They are humble because of their lot in life so they can talk to the humble and they know humility when they experience it. Perhaps Jesus was born to the shephards to show that He was humble. After all, look where He was born in a stable amongst animals…Jesus was born humble. People of the first century must have looked at what Luke was writing and thinking: God became flesh; was born in a stable and laid to rest in a feeding trough. And the first people to be invited were the night shift shepherds…Luke are you crazy? But it’s not Luke that we have to understand, it’s God, that’s right, we can understand God…as least when it comes to His children.
Continue on.... 1 | 2 | 3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
