The Shepherd King

Hear Randy Alcorn on shepherds:

'In Jesus' day, shepherds were the bottom rung of the Palestinian social ladder. They shared the same unenviable status as dung collectors and road sweepers. Only Luke mentions them... Some shepherds earned their reputation but others became the victim of a cruel stereotype. Religious leaders maliugned the shepherds good name, rabbis banned pasturing sheep and goats in Israel, except in the desert plains...smug religious leaders maintained a strict caste system at the expense of shepherds and other common folk. They were labelled 'sinners' a technical term for a class of despised people. In to this context of religious and social snobbery stepped the Son of God.'

When we understand something of this social context, two more things about the incarnation should surprise us. First of all, that shepherds were invited at all tells us that something abnormal was going on. The angles didn't appear to the religious elite, or to King Herod, but to Mary, and to shepherds. The birth of Jesus wasn't a gathering of the great and the good. Quite the opposite in fact.

We should be reminded that Jesus came for 'them.' The people that you'd cross the road to avoid, the people that you hope your kids don't grow up to be like. Not only did Jesus come for them, He made sure they were invited to His birth. It teaches us that moralism and attendance does not equal Christianity. The Pharisees could cross both those things off their lists, but ti did them no good. The shepherds knew they needed a Saviour, they knew it deep in their blood, they knew it in their bones. Do we?

And when we understand how shepherds were looked at, it's all the more amazing that Jesus would identify Himself as the shepherd King. Jesus mourned for people because they were like sheep without a shepherd, when He fed five thousand men He organised them on the 'green grass' like a flock. Ezekiel promised Israel that they would have 'one shepherd.' Jesus was happy to identify Himself with this despised class of people, happy to redeem the image, happy to wear it.

The more we stand on our tip toes to gaze into the incarnation, the more amazing it becomes. Jesus the shepherd inviting, shepherd King. The slayer of pride among His people. The provider and protector for His basically helpless people. The King who identified with the lowest of the low. One of the myriad of reasons Jesus came as a baby? To help His people, His Church be humble. You can't be proud when you worship a shepherd.