Bethlehem’s Shepherds

A “Lovely Thought” Indeed

I stumbled across something the other day – something I hadn’t given any thought to before.  And although the picture of the starry shepherd’s night watch being filled with the glory of a multitude of angels singing praises to a newborn King has always delighted my imagination, I never quite connected these shepherds to the Lamb of God the way William Barclay does below.

Jim L. Wilson has been providing his Fresh Sermons for some time now; they’re available via Logos and on the Web.   I was reading his “Shepherds” sermon and was intrigued by this:

Shepherds weren’t admired in Biblical times. They are called loathsome (NAS) [Also “an abomination”, “detestable”, “loathsome”] in Genesis 46:34. In fact, being a shepherd was considered punishment. Numbers 14:33 says, “And your sons shall be shepherds for forty years in the wilderness, and they shall suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your corpses lie in the wilderness.”

Wilson follows that up with a quotation from Barclay’s The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Luke that supports the above:

It is a wonderful thing that the story should tell that the first announcement of God should come to some shepherds. Shepherds were despised by the orthodox good people of the day. They were quite unable to keep the details of the ceremonial law; they could not observe all the meticulous hand washings and rules and regulations. Their flock made constant demands on them; and so the orthodox looked down on them. It was to simple men of the fields that God’s message first came.

Wilson stops the quotation there.  He is, after all, making another point - the one about the social status of the shepherds in 1st Century Bethlehem, that no one is beyond God’s reach; not you, not me, not even the despised shepherds of that day.  But I wanted to find the full attribution for this quote so I went looking, and I found something I’ve never seen before (nor heard).  That’s always a nice Christmas gift – to be able to see the old, familiar story in a new way.   It was again from Barclay, and it immediately follows the quote given above.  But this one stopped me in my tracks:

But these were in all likelihood very special shepherds. We have already seen how in the Temple, morning and evening, an unblemished lamb was offered as a sacrifice to God. The see that the supply of perfect offerings was always available the temple authorities had their own private sheep flocks; and we know that these flocks were pastured near Bethlehem.  It is most likely that these shepherds were in charge of the flocks from which the Temple offerings were chosen.  It is a lovely thought that the shepherds who looked after the Temple lambs were the first to see the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Isn’t that wonderful?  And of course…but how perfect.  I’ll never read this story the same way again:

The Angels Announce Jesus to the Shepherds

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.