Funny thing is that people don't realise how shocking it was to have shepherds involved in the most important event in history.
Shepherds
do look lovely in the pictures – the usual ones you have on your
Christmas cards. Lovely and clean. The sheep too, but you know the
truth's a bit different with sheep. Shepherds much the same.
It
wasn't just that you don't get to wash much in the hills. We were
social scum so what's the point? Until we met those heavenly
messengers we were nobodies and we treated ourselves as such.
Worse
than nobodies, often labelled criminals.
True,
most of us had done bad things – often it was the reason we were in
the hills, to get away from the law, or the booze, or the women after
us because of children we “gifted” them on a rare night in town.
But there was no chance now of ever being any different. Labelled
for life, good people want nothing to do with us. Surely you don't do
that to people in your day, now that you've got Jesus.
So
we don't belong in the pretty Christmas picture. But we do belong in
the Christmas story – if
you
have got the message right. If you have really heard the good
news
and you believe it to be true.
Good
news, yes. Good news because it puts God and God's approach to
things, so to speak, in charge. If you want to know what that means,
look at who the baby grew up to be. We realised something was up
when we saw his parents, when they told us their story. A likely
story, but we know what it's like when people jump to conclusions
about us, so we believed them. It had to be God involved in this.
Who else chooses dodgy people?
Look
at the people Jesus chose, the people he spent time with, and all the
good and proper people got more than just their noses out of joint.
There are no outsiders in Jesus' view of the world. Even criminals
belong in God's care. Even people who make mistakes, big or little.
Changed
our lives? Yes, it did. When you realise you matter – that God's
messengers pick you out, God picks you out – that changes
everything. Attitude, behaviour, what we expected of ourselves, who
we could become.
The
good news is that God knows who we can become, and it's all good.
Believe it and you start becoming it.
We're
still shepherds, but it's not an escape anymore. It
happens to be
where we belong
and can
be the people God calls us to be.
Rangimarie
Peace Shalom, Robyn
