I shared this message at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on Christmas Eve, 2021. Based on the nativity story in Luke 2.
I want you to think about where you were last year at this time. I don’t actually remember where I was—possibly visiting my in-laws already instead of waiting until Christmas morning. I know where I wasn’t, and where nobody was: here. Last year at this time, our in-person worship was still shut down. We wanted to be able to welcome everyone, but feared that Christmas Eve especially would become a super-spreader event with all of the out-of-town visitors.
On December 11 of last year, the first COVID vaccine was approved. Soon after, a second vaccine, and then a third, were approved. First, they went to people over 65 and those who were otherwise vulnerable, and eventually they rolled out to everyone, now including children over the age of 5 and boosters for adults.
Easter was our first worship back together after all of that. By then, a good fraction of our congregation was vaccinated, so we felt more comfortable worshipping together. We haven’t shut down since. We thought the pandemic was behind us, that we were on the path back to normal life.
This congregation was dealt another blow in June when Pastor Lou Ellen left us. God was calling her to a new ministry. That left us to figure out what God was calling us to do.
Meanwhile, the pandemic has not really ended. First the delta variant swept the nation, and now the omicron variant. It seems we can never escape COVID-19. We can never escape the brokenness of this world, no matter how hard we try. Yet, we should remember that life today, as hard as it is, is wonderful compared to the grinding misery of life under the Roman Empire in first-century Judea.
Think back to the story we have heard. Mary, a teenager, was pregnant and her time to deliver had come. Still, the power of empire forced her and her husband to make an arduous journey of roughly 90 miles, probably on foot, so that the Romans could more efficiently extract wealth from their subjugated people. On Sunday, we will hear that the Holy Family was soon afterwards forced to flee for their lives to Egypt. Life was hard under the Romans.
That night, while Mary and Joseph comforted their newborn son, there were shepherds hard at work. Shepherds sometimes get a bad rap in modern retellings. There are some ancient sources who describe them as lazy, untrustworthy, and unclean. But the best evidence is that at the time and place of Jesus’s birth, the shepherds were respected. They were hard-working, tough men who protected their sheep from predators and bandits.
See, at night, sheep don’t need to be herded to keep them from wandering off. They’re asleep. So why were the shepherds keeping watch? Because a sheep is like money that walks around. They were making sure no bandits came to steal them. They were protecting their sheep from lions and bears, just as David did as a youth. The shepherds were hard men, tough men who risked their lives to protect the helpless sheep under their charge.
That night, God broke through. An angel appeared, and “the glory of the Lord shone around them.” This is just like what happened to Moses, and just like what will happen at Jesus’s Transfiguration. They were tough men, but they were terrified at first. Sure, a lion or a bear might take a sheep or two, but here was God’s army coming. Was the angel there to destroy them all? Had the Day of the Lord arrived, the prophesied day of God’s terrible judgment?
No. The angel tells them not to fear, that a savior has been born for them. Remember that they were suffering under the weight of the Roman Empire just as Mary and Joseph were. They remembered the glorious past of Israel under David and Solomon, and were waiting expectantly for a Messiah who would save God’s people. Like us, they were waiting for deliverance from the evil of the world around them. Their fear turned to joy at God’s presence. God had finally sent a savior for them.
They didn’t know what kind of savior was born that night, though. They didn’t know that their savior was also our savior, someone to bring God’s eternal kingdom to earth. They were living in the Pax Romana, a sort of “peace through strength” where the Roman Empire was so strong that nobody dared challenge their rule, no matter how burdensome or evil. They didn’t imagine that their Messiah, God’s anointed one, would replace the false peace of empire with the shalom of God’s rule in our hearts. Jesus came to establish a new kind of peace. Instead of the peace of a police state in which everybody is equally degraded, Jesus came to establish a kingdom in which everybody is equally uplifted. He came to establish a kingdom of justice, of righteousness, of wholeness, and of harmony.
Tonight, we gather to remember that Jesus came, and comes again this night, to disrupt our lives just as he disrupted those shepherds’ lives. He came not to rule the world, but to rule our hearts. And of his kingdom, there will be no end.
Our congregation, our families, our nation, and our world have challenges ahead of us. But when it seems that all is lost, we can remember that night, two thousand years ago, when God’s glory shone around the shepherds. God broke through with good news of great joy: a savior who came for them. That same savior came for us and dwells among us. I pray that you will all know the hope, love, joy, and peace that our Messiah brings, the wholeness that comes from Emmanuel, God with us. Amen.