Shepherds and a Baby

We’ve heard two passages read today. The first – from John 1 – is the great soaring climax to the Christmas story, stating that the impossible has happened and God is fully present in the darkness of our lives. I won’t go deeper into that wonderful chapter this morning, but we hear it as the backdrop to Luke’s story about the shepherds.

Luke 2 is a story that we have heard often. We know it well, but it never grows old. Shepherds out in the field with their flocks. Angels appearing and blazing the skies with their glory and song. Parents with a baby boy in the humblest of places – the antithesis of the glory of the angels. The shepherds again, binding together the glory and the baby.

Glory

Let’s talk about the glory first. Some commentators say that the fact that the shepherds were in the fields at night suggests that this is not actually “in the deep midwinter”. In winter, they would have been in shelter keeping warm. I grew up celebrating Christmas in the middle of the summer, and the scene suggests that Australia and Zimbabwe are closer to their experience than Manitoba is. So, they are in the fields near Bethlehem.

I wonder who these shepherds were. Some commentators note their low status in Judean society – you don’t go to shepherds for high status. Other commentators note that the Old Testament uses the image of shepherd as a metaphor for the kings of Israel – so perhaps they did at least have the respect of the people. One speculation intrigued me. Most shepherds would be out in a more remote area than Bethlehem. Shepherds in the fields around Bethlehem were probably attached to the Temple in Jerusalem. Their flocks would have provided the sheep for the temple sacrifices. If this is the case, the angels chose the shepherds precisely because they were already dedicated to God’s service. And the shepherds were excited because they really were waiting for and already working for the coming of the Messiah.

In the end, however, there’s no getting around it. They were shepherds, and shepherds were sort of like farmers in Manitoba. Respected. Hard working. Getting dirty when they need to. You don’t go to the barn when you want to show off for high society, and you don’t go to the shepherds when you want to show off.

Except that the angels did go to the shepherds to show off. “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying …” It must have been an incredible sight. One angel frightened the shepherds, so the angel said, “Don’t be afraid!” What must an army of angels have done? They were too overcome to get out their smart phones and record the event. They could only gasp and gape and revel in the Shekinah glory poured out all around them.

I have seen displays of natural glory, usually in the form of lightning displays. I am profoundly uncomfortable when the skies light up with one lightning bolt after another. I remember driving our son home from a soccer game in Kentucky as the skies grew dark with storm clouds and were then lit up with one flash after another. If you combine that kind of overwhelming power with the clear words of praise to God in the angels’ song, you get something of the experience that overwhelmed the shepherds. Powerful. Uncomfortable. Glorious. Wonderful. Absolutely astounding.

When it was all over and they could breathe again, they started processing. “Let’s go see this baby!” “The angels said, ‘in Bethlehem’. Let’s go see!” And they did. They went and found Mary and Joseph and the baby and the stable. Here was the polar opposite of the display they had just seen. We were just with our younger son and his wife, meeting our youngest grandchild. He was about three weeks old when we first saw him. Babies do not project lightning displays of power. They cry, and they eat, and they sleep, and they wait for a diaper change.

No matter how we dress up the manger scene, it remains a picture of humility and smallness, in sharp contrast to the glory of the angels. The point is that this humility is the vessel in which we find the glory of God. God’s light shining in the angels comes to us veiled in the baby. This is a basic principle of the moral universe: Light comes wrapped in love; power comes to us in weakness; glory is revealed in the small things of life.

The opposite is also true. When people in our world set out to show how great and powerful they are, they cut themselves off from the God who revealed God’s self in the humility of the manger scene. Much of what we do in our world, we do to impress people. The principle of glorious light wrapped in simple family love contradicts our human displays of power.

A Lesson from LOTR

I have seen a series of essays recently in social media, reflecting on ideas from one of the great fantasy books and movies of our day, Lord of the Rings. I have edited one of these essays (by Genny Harrison) for us this morning. Here it is.

 

At the most important moment in modern fantasy, the hero fails. Not quietly. Not ambiguously. He stands at the edge of the world, feels the full weight of evil loosen its grip, and chooses it anyway.

At the edge of Mount Doom, with the fate of the world balanced on a single will, Frodo Baggins does not throw the Ring into the fire. He claims it. The moment every heroic narrative has trained us to expect as triumph becomes instead a confession of failure. Tolkien does not flinch. He lets the hero break.

And yet the world is saved.

This is not a plot twist. It is a moral thesis. The destruction of the Ring happens not because Frodo earns victory, but because mercy extended long before the ending finally comes due. ….

By the time he reaches the Fire, Frodo has endured starvation, sleep deprivation, repeated physical injury, and sustained psychological terror. Modern neuroscience would describe this as cumulative trauma. …

The quest only succeeds because of Gollum. And even that rescue is not redemption in the sentimental sense. Gollum does not transform into goodness. He falls into the fire because of what he already is. The deeper truth is that Gollum is alive at all only because he was spared when mercy looked foolish. First by Bilbo. Then by Gandalf. Then most dangerously by Frodo himself.

The Ring is destroyed not because Frodo conquers it, but because Frodo once chose not to destroy someone else.

This is a devastating inversion of the moral economy most of us were raised to believe in. We are taught to look for visible proof that goodness works. Tolkien gives us an older logic. Moral victories are often retroactive. The most transformative decisions rarely announce themselves as such. They look inefficient. They look naive. They often look like failure.

In the medieval moral tradition that shaped Tolkien, mercy was not sentimental. It was strategic in a way power could never be. Mercy refused to close the future. It kept outcomes unresolved. It preserved the possibility that evil might one day undo itself. …

We live in an age that worships visible dominance. We measure virtue through performance. We reward leaders who claim they can bend chaos through sheer will. Tolkien issues a quiet warning instead. When power becomes the proof of goodness, goodness collapses.

Frodo fails because no one was ever meant to pass that final test.

The world is not saved by the flawless execution of the righteous. It is saved by the accumulated weight of restraint. By choices made without assurance of payoff. By mercy that looked wasted at the time. By patience that looked irrational. By hands that refused the easy kill and kept the future open instead.

…. The modern fantasy is that effort always guarantees justice. Tolkien tells a harder truth. Sometimes the most important moral decisions you will ever make will feel powerless when you make them. Sometimes the victory will not belong to your endurance at all. It will belong to mercy that looked like weakness years earlier.

Frodo does not win.

Mercy does.

And it does not feel triumphant.

 

The idea that God redeems the world through our failures is a complex and difficult one; it is also profoundly Christian. We want to set ourselves against evil and defeat it, when instead we are invited to join forces with a baby in a manger. We don’t join Herod’s side. We don’t join Pilate’s or Caesar’s army. We don’t ally ourselves with the leaders who say they will destroy our enemies. Instead, we choose the baby who grew into the man Jesus. We choose the one who willingly died and accepted into himself the pain and heartache of our broken world. We choose to live out the love and mercy of God revealed in Jesus.

Conclusion

What this looks like, as Genny Harrison reminds us in the essay on Frodo, is doing the right thing because it is right. It may seem hopeless, but we show mercy and love always. We may not see any change around us, but we act out the mercy and love of God each day. Small acts of mercy. Small acts of love. Living in harmony with the Creator of the world.

I said that we may not see a big change in our situation when we do what is right. I may reach out to a brother who is down and out and then see the same person again tomorrow, still struggling. Maybe an analogy can help us see how important the small acts area.

The big changes that we see are like the landscape around us. It’s important to shape the landscape well. We build our homes and devise our social structures and so on. We want these to be good. The small acts – the things we do every day without even thinking – are like the deep places of the earth, the tectonic plates. Tectonic plates under the surface of the earth move slowly, but they move with great force. When they build up enough force, they cause an earthquake that shatters the surface of the earth.

Why would I think that the small acts of mercy and love are the tectonic plates beneath the surface? Because they come from God’s deepest nature – as revealed in the glory of the angels and the presence of the baby. God has made our world so that love and mercy and justice are the bedrock. You can build injustice and division on the surface, but sooner or later the earthquake of God’s love will shatter the surface of our lives. Then, if we have built with that same love, we will find ourselves where God wants us to be.

I think that Martin Luther King’s famous line is making a similar point, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” May we follow the shepherds to the stable this Christmas. May we see the glory of the angels wrapped in the love of the baby. May we respond by acting in ways consistent with God’s light revealed in love. “He has showed you, O man, O woman, what is good and what the Lord requires of you, that you shall do justice and love mercy and be ready to walk after the Lord your God.” (Micah 6:8)

Steinbach Mennonite Church

21 December 2025

John 1: 1 to 5

Luke 2: 8 to 20

Christmas 2023

You have heard the first eight lessons read – one remains: the wonderful passage from John’s gospel. We could go through the lessons. Sketching the whole story of Creation, Fall, and Redemption; but this morning I give only two brief thoughts.

 

One, Christmas and these readings upend the world’s obsession with power and wealth and tells us the story of God – the Ultimate Reality – is on the side of the powerless. An old carol says it:

All poor men and humble,/ All lame men who stumble,/ Come haste ye, nor feel ye afraid.

For Jesus our treasure,/ With love past all measure,/ In lowly poor manger was laid.

 

Though wise men who found him/ Laid rich gifts around him,/ Yet oxen they gave him their hay;

And Jesus in beauty/ Accepted their duty;/ Contented in manger he lay.

 

Then haste we to show him/ The praises we owe him;/ Our service he ne'er can despise:

Whose love still is able/ To show us that stable/ Where softly in manger he lies.

 

I heard last week that my old office mate from when I began teaching has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He is a man of deep wisdom and compassion who has helped so many in their times of darkness. This year, he is stumbling towards the manger, and there he finds God’s love and light.

 

Two, John 1 tells us of the Word made flesh. In Greek: the Logos – the principle of reality – became a human. In Chinese: the Dao – the way that undergirds the world – became a child, a baby boy. John tells us that in the Word, the Logos, the Dao made flesh, we see God’s glory revealed.

 

The early church father Athanasius said it this way: “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” This idea of divination pushes the boundaries of my understanding. A startling statement! It makes it clear that God has destined us for a glory we cannot imagine, and that the birth of Jesus is the essential key to this indescribable process.

 

My father died five and a half years ago. The day before he died, my sister was reading to him from this passage in John 1. When she reached the words, “the Word became flesh and dwelled among us”, Dad exclaimed, “Isn’t that wonderful! Isn’t that amazing!” He was looking into eternity at something beyond our comprehension. The miracle of Christmas.

The Festival of Light

Epiphany

Today is the Second Sunday after Christmas. Next Sunday is the first Sunday after Epiphany. Epiphany occurs on January 6, 12 days after Christmas Day. What does “epiphany” mean? The online Encyclopedia Britannica gives this answer: Epiphany is the celebration “commemorating the first manifestation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, represented by the Magi, and the manifestation of his divinity, as it occurred at his baptism in the Jordan River and at his first miracle, at Cana in Galilee.” We focus today on the first of these aspects of the Epiphany. 

 

We read the Scripture from Matthew 2, in which Jesus was manifested (or made known) to the Gentiles, represented by the magi. These oriental scholars had been studying the stars, which told them that “the king of the Jews” had been born somewhere east of where they lived. They followed the star, which led them to Bethlehem and to the house where Mary and Joseph and Jesus were. There Jesus the Messiah was revealed to them, and there they worshipped him. 

 

Consider the light of the star. At one level, Epiphany – indeed, Christmas as a whole – is our festival of light. Many religions have festivals of light – I checked Wikipedia out of curiosity and found the following (among others): 

·         Diwali in Hinduism, Sikhism, and Jainism. 

·         The Lantern Festival in China, originating in Buddhism. 

·         Hanukkah, a Jewish holiday. 

·         Not to mention festivals held in various countries and cultures – from Canada to the United States to various countries in Europe and Asia.

 

And, of course, Christmas. Light is a basic theme throughout the Christmas season, and it comes to a glorious climax with the light of the star over the house in Bethlehem. We use this theme of light, then, to look at the Scriptures we read this morning. 

 

Isaiah 60: 1 to 6 

The passage from Isaiah forms one of the best known and moving parts of Handel’s Messiah: “For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee.” (vv 2 and 3) 

 

Consider what Isaiah has to say: 

Verses 1-3: The light of God’s glory has risen on God’s people. They were lost in the darkness of exile from their homeland, refugees trapped in Babylon. There, in their darkness, God appears with a salvation so great, so wonderful, that the rulers of the world come to see what is happening. 

 

Verses 4-6: God’s people are called to look up and see how God has set them free, as even their enemies bring good things to them. They have been scattered, but now they are being gathered together and brought back home to live in peace and light. 

 

You can see how the theme of light speaks to us today. Like God’s People in Isaiah, we live in darkness. We struggle with personal and public problems. A cloud of Covid-19 hangs over our heads, so that we wonder if there is any hope in life. The darkness of failed relationships drifts between us, isolating us from other people. Imaginary fears and all too real problems threaten us, and we wonder how we can make it. 

 

Into our darkness comes light. God’s light. The light of God’s salvation. We find that God can restore relationships that we have given up on. We discover that God heal diseases of the body and of the soul – through medical science and therapists and directly through the touch of God’s Spirit. Light sparks and grows around us and drives away the darkness! 

 

Matthew 2: 1-12 

The book of Matthew has several basic themes. One of them is the way that the gospel appeals to Gentiles as well as Jews, to the ultimate outsiders as well as the complete insiders. The Great Commission (as we call it) at the end of Matthew’s book states it clearly: “Go into all the world and make disciples of all people” – Jews and Gentiles, men and women, rulers and peasants, the most woke generation ever and their boomer grandparents. The light Isaiah describes is not just for the Chosen Few. God’s light shines on the whole world. 

 

Another basic theme in Matthew’s Gospel is the rule of Jesus as the king of the universe. In chapter one, Jesus is identified as the son of David, the king of Israel. Again, at the end of the book, Jesus begins the Great Commission with the words, “All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me.” Jesus is the supreme ruler, the creator of all that is. 

 

Both themes are in Matthew 2. The conflict between Herod King and Jesus King is clear. The magi come looking for Jesus. They ask King Herod the way. He directs them to Bethlehem and tries to enlist them as his spies to help him get rid of the competition. Then they meet Jesus, and they worship him. After they worship King Jesus, they do not return to Herod. In fact, they never call Herod “King” again. Herod has been dethroned. Jesus is the King of the Universe. 

 

The theme of inclusion is clear in the identity of the magi. They came “from the East” – not Ontario, but what we would call Iran today. They were not Jews. They did not know the Torah. They were not part of the Chosen People, but God called them and brought them by the star to worship Jesus. Jesus is their saviour as well as the saviour of the Jews. The gospel is for everyone. God includes everyone who responds to God’s call on their lives. 

 

These themes are presented through the star – the festival of light. There is plenty of light throughout the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke – especially the bright angels coming to the shepherds in Luke 2. The star that led the magi was quieter and steadier than the angels of Luke 2. It was also a source of the light that showed them the King of the Jews and the Saviour of the world. The festival of light. 

 

Light in our World 

The basic idea is clear enough. We live in difficult dark times. God comes into our darkness with light. The way that John puts it is this,

⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. … ⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (NIV)

 

Isaiah and Matthew invite us to “believe in his name” and become God’s children. They invite us to shine the light of God’s salvation into the darkness of our lives. What does that look like? Let me tell you two stories that illustrate light shining in the darkness and bringing new life where we might think it is impossible. 

 

The Axe and the Tree 

In June 1978, a group of missionaries were holding on at a school named “Emmanuel Secondary School”, just outside the city of Mutare in Zimbabwe. The Liberation War was going strong. Government forces brutalized people in the countryside, and the men and women fighting for majority rule in Zimbabwe also committed their own atrocities. 

 

One of these terrible events was the killing of some missionaries who worked under the Elim Mission from England. A group of combatants, probably from ZANLA, came at night and killed seven missionaries and their five children. One of their co-workers who survived was a man named Peter Griffiths, who was on home assignment in England with his family when the attack came. His son (Steve Griffiths) has written up the story in a book called The Axe and the Tree. 

 

After the war, Griffiths returned to Zimbabwe and moved to Harare. One day he heard that one member of the group who had killed his co-workers had become a Christian and was studying at a Bible School in Harare. He went to visit the man, who called himself Garikai. Over time, they became friends, and Garikai told him the full story of what had happened that night. It was a hard friendship, as they acknowledged the darkness that made their memories so painful. It was also a good friendship. 

 

Eventually, Garikai joined Griffith’s church. As they learned to trust each other and live in the light of the gospel, Griffiths recommended Garikai to the elders of the church to become a deacon. The story is much longer than I can tell this morning, but it illustrates God’s light breaking into human darkness. As the missionaries were dying, they prayed aloud for God’s salvation to come to their attackers. Garikai was one of eight members of the attacking party who came to faith in Christ and learned to love the Prince of Peace. 

 

This same darkness threatens all of us. There was a former soldier from the Rhodesian Army in their church. The army and the liberation forces were deadly enemies. One evening, as they had supper together, he asked Griffiths, “Do you believe this fellow will be in Heaven?” Griffiths replied, “Yes, I do.” The former soldier said, “Then I don’t want to be there. I’m not interested in sharing heaven with the likes of him.” Griffiths replied, “Then you don’t yet fully understand the depths of your own sin or what Jesus achieved through his death on the cross.” 

 

Christian Aid Mission 

Last October, 16 missionary adults and children, along with their driver, were abducted in Haiti by a gang called 400 Mazowo. We have followed the story – how the gang kidnapped the 17 people from Canada and the USA; the demand for US$1,000,000 per person; the initial release of the first five people; and finally the escape of the remaining 12 missionaries and children. 

 

The story makes for interesting reading, but I notice especially how the Christian party acted. The news reports tell how they prayed and sang at regular times, three times a day. Now that they are finally free, they have spent more time calling for forgiveness than for revenge. They found themselves in darkness, and they responded by looking to the light of God’s presence. 

 

They were conservative Mennonites, and we might find their choices a little over the top. We don’t adopt a curious form of dress as they do. We don’t avoid the world around us with the care that they do. But we do share their commitment to peace and reconciliation. Their example of bringing light into darkness is one we also share. God’s light shines into the darkness of this world in and through God’s People, through you and me. 

 

One More Story? 

I could tell more stories, but these stories have a danger. We hear about a massacre in Zimbabwe, and we may think, “Of course, Africa is a violent continent.” We hear about a kidnapping in Haiti, and we may think to ourselves, “Of course, Haiti is corrupt, a failed state.” We may think that we are different, but of course we are not different. That’s the danger. We may think that the darkness of this world lies in other people, when in truth darkness is close to all of us. Canada is no better than Haiti. North America is no better than Africa. The darkness of human sin and brokenness comes in many forms and covers all of us. God’s love also comes in many forms and shines “far as the curse is found”. 

 

The last story that we must tell is our own story. We look inside ourselves and acknowledge the darkness around us and within us. We discover God’s light shining around us and within us. The star shining over Bethlehem shines over our own homes as well, and the Saviour of the world has come to you and to me as well. 

 

Conclusion 

Our theme throughout Advent has been to imagine God bringing peace and hope and joy. Today the conference theme is “Imagine God dancing.” When we see the darkness, we may think that God is weeping. Indeed, God does enter the heart of darkness and weeps there with us. But God does not remain in darkness. God cannot remain in darkness! God is light! God brings light! And one way to see that light is to imagine God dancing. Dancing with joy, spreading peace and hope not just as far as the curse is found, but further, much further.

I danced in the morning when the world was begun. 

And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun, 

And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth. 

At Bethlehem I had my birth.

Dance, then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be, And I’ll lead you all in the Dance, said he.”

 

Two final thoughts. What does this all mean? More than these two thoughts, but at least this much: 

1)      We cannot make the light that we need in our darkness; only God is light. Only God can save us. 

2)      When God shines the light of salvation in our lives, that does not mean there are no more problems, no more darkness. We live in mingled shades of light and dark until Jesus returns or we die. It means that God shines light into our darkness, and the darkness cannot defeat it. 

 

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church 

2 January 2022 

 

Focus Statement: Many religions have festivals of light. "Epiphany" is one such festival with the star over Bethlehem. The star reminds us that light has come into our darkness and that darkness can never overcome the light. 

 

Texts: Isaiah 60: 1 to 6; Matthew 2: 1 to 12. 

 

“Thinking Ahead” Questions: We sing “joy to the world” and say that the joy goes “far as the curse is found.” Which is stronger in your life – the joy or the curse? And why? 

 

“Going Deeper” Questions: 

·         What do you think of the different “festivals of light” found in different religions of the world? How is Epiphany like them? How is it different? 

·         “Light” and “Lordship” are connected in our texts. How do you see the connection between God’s light in our darkness and God’s reign in our lives? 

·         Which is stronger in your experience – darkness or light? Why do you answer as you do?

How can we let God's light shine in?