By
Pastor Greg
Hello, I'm child number 434,484 … if my math is correct.
Just an ordinary guy born on an ordinary day in an ordinary way in an average
town in Pennsylvania. Ordinarily,
we don't get excited about ordinary
births; it's the extraordinary that captures our attention. 3,977,745 births in America last year[1]. That's approximately 1 baby every 12.5
seconds in the USA if my math is
correct. And how many of those made the
news? Apart from the births that
impacted your life, can you remember the birth of a child you've never
met?
Ordinarily, that fact wouldn't make a
bit of difference to me, but this Christmas season I have been struck by the
ordinariness of Jesus Birth. “She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him
snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger,
because there was no room for them in the village inn.” Luke 2:7
Apart
from what we know went on behind the scene, it was a rather uneventful birth … compared to the standards back then of
course. In today's standards, though, it
would have caught the attention of the News Media and some News Anchor would
declare “Give me a break!” Then He'd
point out how some poor young couple was turned out to the streets to have
their baby because a hotel couldn't find them any room!! And the chances
are that he'd be more concerned why the hotels overbook than with anything concerning the baby. After all, it was just an ordinary baby, one of many born that year. Apart from the intervention and announcements
from the Divine, the birth of Christ was, well, ordinary.
A seemingly ordinary Child is born of ordinary parents in an ordinary way in some back-street barn in the ordinary town of Bethlehem Bethlehem in Judea ,
during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern
lands arrived in Jerusalem Jerusalem Bethlehem , the city of David
According to Luke's gospel, it was a
group of ordinary shepherds who received an extraordinary announcement. Not Kings.
Not Chief Priests or Scribes. Not
the Pharisee with his degree in Old Testament prophesies. Not the Prophet preaching at the big tent
just outside of town. The Angel of the
Lord didn't appear in the Temple that night and
say, “Hey guys, He's over there in Bethlehem.” God chose to make His extraordinary
announcement to some ordinary shepherds doing what ordinary shepherds do … watching over their sheep that night. Shepherds.
Ordinary shepherds. And yet these shepherds do an extraordinary thing. When the Heavenly Choir goes home, how do
they react?
“Yo, Levi. You see that?”
“I didn't see nothin.”
No.
Of course not. These ordinary shepherds
take this extraordinary news straight
into Bethlehem
“When the angels had
returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, "Come on, let’s go
to Bethlehem
If you learn anything this Christmas
season, please know that the birth of Christ was not the show-stopping
production we have been led to believe. Here
you have the Word becoming flesh; the Logos coming to earth. And God almost snuck Him in unnoticed. If it hadn't been for a couple of Wiseguys from the east and some ordinary
shepherds, would the world have known about the birth of Jesus?
If you notice,
these common, ordinary shepherds become the first evangelist. “Then the shepherds
told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this
child.” Luke 2:17. A revelation of
the Messiah was given them, and they told everyone what had happened and what the
angel had said. Afterward, “All who heard the shepherds' story were astonished” (Luke 2:18), and even Mary “quietly treasured these things in her heart and thought about
them often” (Luke 2:19).
Perhaps
like me, you feel a bit ordinary. I was
one of 486 other children born that hour in 1960. Approximately child number 434,484 that year
… if my math is correct. A meaningless number to the US Census Bureau.
I’m not the sharpest person you’ll ever
meet. I’m not some great theologian or
Bible Scholar. But I do know what I have
seen and what I have been told. I know
what has been entrusted to my care; me,
an ordinary person just like you. And
like me, you were probably just an ordinary
child born in an ordinary way to rather normal parents as well. But you too know what you have heard and what
you have seen. Like the ordinary shepherds back then, ordinary people like
you and me have been given the responsibility of announcing the birth of
Christ. Instead of flashes of lightning
and peals of thunder announcing the birth to the whole world, the fate of
Christ's birth rests in the hands of a small group of ordinary people, just like
you and me.
So … will we give our token church
appearance during the Christmas Season and then go home? Or will we join with these shepherds in
proclaiming what we have seen and what we have been told?
As you drift through yet another
Christmas season that seems to be just like all the others, there is within
this season an extraordinary message that needs to be told; “For today in the
city of David
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