If You Had Good News, Who Would You Tell?

If you were God, and you had just done something unprecedented, who would you tell?  Who would get the first call, the first email, the first text from you? God had to decide who to tell first when he came to live as a human. Who did he tell?

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Do you know any garbage collectors, plumbers, janitors, maids, nursing home workers, infant childcare providers, restaurant dishwashers, or hotel cleaners?  Any postal carriers, FedEx or UPS or Amazon delivery drivers, or people who work outdoors?  Any farmers, farmworkers, timber workers, or people who work with livestock?

If you do, please share this post with them and tell them:

This post is for you.

God sees you, and

he has good news he

wants to share with you.

If you had good news, who would you tell?  Who would you call, email, or text?

God told his good news to shepherds

When Jesus was born, God wanted to tell the good news to someone.  Who did he choose to tell first?

Shepherds.  People whom others looked down on.  Working class people who got their hands dirty every day for the benefit of people who relied on them but didn’t care about them.

Luke tells us:

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.  Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” (Luke 2:8-11, NRSV)

Who are the “shepherds” of our time who God might approach, if he wanted to share his good news today?  Here are some examples.

People who keep us clean

Shepherds provided food and wool to others.  But they also provided the sacrificial lambs that cleansed people of their impurities.  And their lambs were central to worship in the Temple.

In our day most people don’t believe in ritual purity or sacrificial offerings for sin, but we believe all the more in trying to avoid physical conditions that are unsanitary and unclean.

Today, the people who help keep our environments and ourselves clean include the garbage collectors, the plumbers, the janitors, the maids, the nursing home workers, the infant childcare providers, the restaurant dishwashers, and the hotel cleaners.

If you have one of those jobs, listen up.

Why?  Because when God wanted to tell someone that he had come to Earth to live as a humble human being, he didn’t choose to tell the people with great social status – the famous people, the social influencers, the elite athletes, the people everyone else gets excited about.

He chose to tell people like you.

And if God had good news to share today, he might start with you.

People who do hard work out in the elements

Shepherds spent their working lives outside.  They faced the cold, the wind, the rain, and the heat daily, so that people could have food and wool and sacrifices.

In our day, the people who spends hour after hour in the cold, the heat, and the storms, so that we can have what we need, include the postal carriers, the FedEx and UPS and Amazon delivery drivers, the security officers who walk a beat or stand at an outdoor post.

If you have one of those jobs, my message if for you.

Why?  Because when God wanted to tell someone that his Son had been born of simple woman named Mary, he didn’t choose to tell the wealthy in their penthouses, the lawyers and bankers in their comfortable offices, or even the priests in their places of worship.

He chose to tell people like you.

And if God had good news to share today, he might start by telling it to you.

People who work with their hands so that everyone else can worship God

Shepherds were the people who worked with their hands, who did what others called the dirty work, so that everyone else could worship God.

Today, farmers and farmworkers provide the crops that become our bread and wine (or grape juice) for communion, the food for our regular meals, and the cotton for our vestments and robes and clothes.  Timber workers provide the raw material for the paper that becomes our Bibles and the wood for our pews and houses.  And we still have people today who care for livestock so that we can eat: sheep, cattle, chickens, pork, fish.

If you have one of those jobs, I’m thinking about you right now.

Why?  Because when God wanted to share his excitement about the plan he was unfolding, which would transform society, he didn’t choose to tell the kings or the government officials, the people who spent all their time in high-powered places working with their minds.

He chose to share the good news with people like you.

And if God had good news for us today, he might tell you first.

Why did God start with shepherds?

There is nothing wrong with being a government official, a banker, a lawyer, a priest, a social star, or an elite athlete.

Any of those are fine jobs, if they are done according to the values God has taught us and therefore bring glory to God.

But God chose to tell his good news to people who were considered to be at the bottom of the social scale, not those at the top.

Would the “important” people have bothered to stop their busy lives and go greet the baby Jesus in his manger?  Would the “powerful” people have been ready to accept that God was breaking into human history and cared as much about the lowly as the powerful?

God started with the shepherds perhaps to make it crystal clear from the very beginning that God is not impressed with what we count as important and powerful.  Everyone is important to him.

But there may have been a second reason.  The shepherds were ready to accept the good news.  They were ready to glorify and praise God for the unusual thing he was doing.  After they greeted the baby Jesus, Luke tells us they could be found “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen” (Luke 2:20).

Luke also says that “they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them” (Luke 2:17-18).  When Luke  says they told it to “all,” he probably means they told it to more than just Mary and Joseph: they were willing to tell the good news to others, too.

God still has good news today, and it is for everyone who is as humble as a shepherd

This good news was not just for a moment.  God still has good news today.  And he still wants to tell the “shepherds” of our day.  He wants you to know that:

• He sees you even when others look right through you and don’t even realize how much they depend on you.

• He hears you when the world ignores you.

• He lifts you up you when the world holds you down.

• He honors you when the world devalues you.

• You are important to him.

But this good news is not just for those who society puts at the lower end of the social scale.  It’s for everyone who is willing to be as humble as a shepherd.

The good news for everyone is this:

• Jesus sees you.

• He knows your struggles.

• He chose to be vulnerable, so he knows what you feel.

• He came to:

– comfort us when we hurt,

– strengthen us when we are weary,

– forgive us when we sin,

– give us his joy in the struggle, and

– help us find hope when we are tempted to despair.

So look up and rejoice.  There are shepherds in the Christmas story because God wanted to tell someone.  He still wants to tell someone, and you are part of his story.

Come to the manger as the shepherds did.

Marvel and rejoice, because God came in obscurity to show that no one is unimportant in the eyes of God.