Seek Meaning (Seek #2)

Welcome to the second Sunday of Advent.

When I was in middle school, I discovered that I resided firmly in the lower echelon of my school’s social system.

Maybe it was because my first name is usually assumed to belong to a girl. Maybe it was because my last name rhymes with words no child wants their last name to rhyme with. And when my classmates figured out they could rearrange the letters of my name into something even worse, that became my nickname.

Maybe it was the glasses. There were plenty of reasons I was considered well outside the popular crowd.

Which is why it was so shocking when I got the note.

A girl from the popular crowd sent me a note saying she liked me, and asking whether I liked her.

Now, before that moment I had not really given her any thought. But with a chance to raise my social standing, I suddenly decided she was extremely cute. I discovered feelings I had not previously known I had.

It was near Valentine’s Day, so I bought a card — two rabbits cuddled together in the snow — wrote her name next to one and mine next to the other, and slipped it into her locker.

Unfortunately, her locker mate found it first, showed it to all their friends, and they ruthlessly teased her for liking a nerd like me.

So word came back through a friend that she did not actually like me after all. And she promptly stopped being cute to me as well.

There is nothing quite like having your heart shattered while being reminded that you do not measure up, that you are not good enough, and that your social standing remains firmly at the bottom.

Everybody Wants Status

In fifth grade I needed every chance I could get to climb that ladder, because I certainly was not climbing it on the playground or the athletic field. And I was not getting there in the classroom either — I got good grades, and in 1983 good grades were not cool. And I was literally overlooked, being one of the shortest kids in my class.

In the eyes of my peers, I did not matter. I felt like an outsider. An outcast. Like my life did not carry much meaning.

And what I have discovered as I have gotten older is that this is not confined to nerdy ten-year-olds. It is simply human.

All of us long to be noticed, respected, and liked — because if that happens, we achieve some kind of status, and we feel like our lives have meaning.

That is why we work to get into a certain school, or earn a certain degree. Why we chase a particular job or a particular income. Why we associate ourselves with certain people, or with certain music, films, or clothes. We use all of it so that others will look at us and think, yes, they are all right. They belong up here, not out there with the outsiders.

And sometimes it works. Sometimes we land in a place where we are liked and respected. We walk into a room and people greet us. Our standing is secure, and we feel like we matter.

And then something changes. We take a different job, or graduate, or move, or our friends move away. And suddenly we are among people who do not know us — who do not know our likes or dislikes — and we are on the outside again, with our standing collapsed.

And we start questioning the meaning of our lives all over again.

The Outsiders in the Christmas Story

Today we are going to meet a group of people inside the Christmas story who were on the outside. The outcasts. The bottom of the social ladder.

And what we will discover is that while their society thought very little of them, God’s perspective was entirely different. God is crazy about them.

My hope is that as you hear about God’s love for them, you will recognize God’s love for you — and realize that your social standing on this earth does not matter. What matters is how God sees you. And that changes everything.

The Text: Luke 2:8–20

Last week we looked at verses 1 through 7 and the story of Mary and Joseph — how they had enormously difficult circumstances swirling around them and yet possessed a remarkable peace. They were genuinely content. And what we took away was that we can have hope when we trust God, because no matter what is happening around us, he can supply a peace that surpasses understanding.

Today we pick up right where we left off.

“And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.’

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!’

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.’ And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”

Were Shepherds Really Outcasts?

If you have been around church long enough, you have heard that shepherds were the outcasts. That is true — sort of.

Some shepherds had accumulated very large flocks, and with that came real wealth. And in that era, wealth was read as a sign of God’s blessing. So those men were among the most respected in their communities.

But when you are a wealthy shepherd, you do not want to be the one spending the night in the fields with the flock — sleeping under the stars with a rock for a pillow, getting rained on, enduring the cold. So you hire people to do it.

Those are the shepherds with the bad reputation.

They were the ones staying up all night protecting sheep from predators, putting their bodies on the line. They were the ones robbed if thieves came in the dark.

And several things compounded their reputation.

First, they could not keep up with the ceremonial laws expected of Jews. They were out in the fields, so they were frequently ceremonially unclean, which meant they could not simply show up at the temple to worship. And the processes for becoming clean often required separation from people or things — but they were already off in the fields. So they could never really complete the process, and grew increasingly distant from a religiously structured culture.

Second, because many were poor and felt underpaid, some shepherds stole. So they had a reputation as thieves, and people did not trust them.

And third, some ended up in that work because they were not considered reliable elsewhere, or because they were loners who preferred the fields precisely because there was nobody out there to mock them.

So a stereotype hardened: shepherds were strange, they smelled, and they spent their lives with sheep.

Which Makes the Announcement Astonishing

Which is why it is so remarkable that God chose shepherds to be the very first people to hear the news of the coming Messiah.

When a head of state arrives in a foreign country, you roll out the red carpet. Your dignitaries, your best and brightest, turn out to welcome them.

Here is the King of Kings arriving on earth. And Herod does not get the call. The high priest does not receive an invitation. No messengers go to Caesar to announce that the King of Kings has been born within the Roman Empire.

It is shepherds who get the invitation to welcome the King.

That tells me three things about how God views the lowly.

1. God Delights to Invite the Lowly

Picture the scene. It is dark. There is no electricity, so no light pollution — the stars are vivid. Maybe there is a small campfire. It is quiet: sheep bleating, wind moving through grass.

And suddenly an angel appears, and the glory of the Lord blazes around them. Light tears into the darkness. You would have to shield your eyes.

And then it speaks. Imagine it standing on a hillside, its voice carrying across the valley so every scattered shepherd hears: Do not be afraid. God has sent his Messiah, born in Bethlehem. And here is how you will recognize him — he is wrapped in rags and lying in a feeding trough.

And the moment the angel finishes, an entire host appears, and this choir declares glory to God in the highest and peace on earth. And then they are gone.

God pulled out every stop. Not merely an angel to announce the Messiah, but a whole host, and blazing light. It is a celebration.

And he threw that party for shepherds. Come on — you are invited to meet the one who was promised.

We see this again in Matthew 22, where Jesus tells a parable about a king whose son is getting married. The invitations go out to the best of the best — and they are all too busy. One has a field to inspect. Another has business. Nobody has time for the prince’s wedding.

So the servants report back, and the king says: I have all this food prepared and I intend to have a party. Go into the streets and invite the lonely, the outcast, the homeless, the poor, the unemployed, the uneducated. Bring them in. We are going to celebrate, because my son is getting married.

2. God Delights to Identify With the Lowly

In the Old Testament, God identifies himself with shepherds. He has David write, in the most famous of the Psalms, that the Lord is my shepherd. And that theme carries straight into the New Testament, where in John 10 Jesus calls himself the good shepherd.

In fact, in our study of Mark we saw a moment where Jesus comes ashore, sees the waiting crowds, and looks on them as sheep without a shepherd — and takes the time to care for them.

Why does God embrace an image associated with the lowly?

Because a good shepherd puts the needs of the sheep before his own.

The view of the sunset might be better from the south side of the hill — but if the grass is better on the north side, that is where the sheep go. And if a predator appears, the shepherd puts his own body between the threat and the flock. Those animals are his livelihood. He does not simply let them be taken.

That is exactly what Jesus did through the cross.

Jesus is the only human who ever lived without sin, so he did not owe the penalty of death. He is the only person who did not need to die for his own sin. And he went to the cross to die in our place. He put our need before his own. He did not need to die. We did. And like a good shepherd, he stepped into the gap.

3. God Delights to Exalt the Lowly

Paul wrote to a church in Philippi where there were contentious relationships, and he tells them the path through their quarrels is humility — putting others’ needs ahead of your own.

And he reaches for the perfect example. Philippians 2:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Jesus is God the Son, part of the Trinity — and he does not clutch that power or lord it over people. He empties himself.

He takes the low road. He is not remotely insulted by identifying with the lowly. Here is the King of Kings, the creator of all things, willingly and gladly taking on human form, entering a sin-stained world, and going all the way to death on a cross.

And now notice what God does with the lowly. Verse 9: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” — so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord.

Jesus takes the lowest road possible and identifies with the lowly more deeply than we could imagine. And God exalts him to the highest possible place.

And that is what happens to the shepherds

They are the social outcasts. The ones who do not matter. They take the low road — working nights, caring for sheep, cut off from their religious community.

And God delights to bring them to welcome the Messiah. He does not give the moment to the already exalted — the Caesars, the Herods, the high priests. He gives it to the lowest.

And you can see they felt it in how they respond.

Verse 20 says they returned glorifying and praising God. And verse 18 shows they could not stop telling people.

Think about it. They had the most extraordinary experience anyone could have — and immediately started telling everyone. As social outcasts. I am sure people looked at them and wondered what they had been drinking. Being alone in the fields with those sheep has finally gotten to them. They think they saw an angel.

This is the kind of thing that gets you mocked publicly for years.

They did not care. They had just met the Messiah, an angel had told them where to find him, and it was exactly as promised.

Suddenly their social standing in the eyes of the world was irrelevant. They mattered to God, and that made all the difference.

Some of those men had never been able to hold a job. Some had held this one a long time and were still poor. They lived in fields with sheep, ostracized and outside.

And God said: I invite you. Come into my kingdom. Come meet my Messiah — because I identify with you. I am willing to come to this earth, take on human flesh, be wrapped in rags and laid in a feeding trough, born to a poor couple not much different from you. Because I delight in taking the lowest of the low and exalting them.

And You Are Part of the Lowly

In our world, when we picture the lowly we think of the homeless man on the street. The widow who can barely afford food. Those with disabilities. People who cannot find or keep a job. Those struggling with mental health.

But I need you to know today that you are part of the lowly.

I do not care how large your house is. I do not care how impressive your job is or that you are at the peak of your career. I do not care what your bank account looks like, or what you drive, or what you wear. I do not care if your family belongs on a magazine cover with a perfect tree behind you.

You are still part of the lowly — because that is what the gospel teaches.

There are two halves to the gospel.

You are far more sinful than you realize

Romans 3:23 tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Break that in two. First: all have sinned. From the highest office in the land to the lowest shepherd, the ground is level at the foot of the cross. We all need Jesus. It does not matter how smart or wealthy or accomplished you are. We are dead in our sin.

Second: and fall short of God’s glorious standard. When you fall short of God’s standard, you are at the bottom. God is at the top — perfect and holy. The rest of us are down here.

So spiritually, we are the low.

But you are far more loved than you could imagine

Remember: God delights to invite, to identify with, and to exalt.

That is why Jesus came — to identify with the lowly, take the low road, and give his life for us so he could spiritually exalt us.

When you were born, God’s image was in you. But that image was twisted and distorted, and rather than being like Jesus you wanted to live for self. You can hear it in an infant’s cry: give me food, give me warmth, give me comfort. And that selfishness continues right through life.

And Jesus came down to die for that selfishness — to redeem us from it and repair his image in us, so that we could go and love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived.

In other words: to be exalted.

So Seek Meaning by Seeking Jesus

This Advent, do not go looking for your meaning in the things of this world.

Do not try to find your meaning and status in your degree, or your job, or your friends and connections, or in being the person whose jokes land well online.

All of that will fade.

Find your meaning in Jesus. Seek him. Because when you look at Christ and see how much he loves you and how completely he gave himself for you, it will lead you to rejoice and to praise God — and you will suddenly find yourself like those shepherds, unable to keep it to yourself.

And you will not care what anyone makes of you, because the God of the universe loves you, created you, and calls you. He invites you to follow him. He identifies with you. And he wants to exalt you.

Let Us Pray

Heavenly Father, move this beyond a set of words I have said and make it a reality inside our hearts.

Help us realize that we are the lowly — that there is nothing we can do to improve our standing with you, and yet you did everything for us. While we could not save ourselves or pay for our own sin, you, Jesus, did it for us.

So help us respond like the shepherds: to rejoice in this gospel truth, to praise you and give you all the glory, and to go and share this news.

I pray for the person here who feels broken and low — whether the world thinks they are doing wonderfully, or the world is what has beaten them down. Let them realize right now how much you love them, and that you are not remotely put off that they are among the low, the ostracized, the sick with sin. Instead, Jesus, you run toward them, because you love them and have something far better for them.

So let them surrender to you right now. Let them confess their sin and let you become their Lord — recognizing that you left your throne in heaven, took on human flesh, lived the sinless life we could not live, and died the sinner’s death we should have died. And as they confess, help them put their faith fully in you, so that today becomes their spiritual birthday and they begin to find true meaning — not in relationships, or a job, or their past, but their meaning, identity, and standing in you.

Open their eyes. Do this for your glory and for their joy. May today be their shepherd day — may they walk out rejoicing and praising you, because you loved them enough to come for them, and now they want to live for you.

And for those who have already put their faith in you: keep humbling us, so we do not make this life about ourselves, and so we are neither puffed up nor torn down by what other people say. Let us realize that in your hands and in your eyes we have value and worth — so much so that you died for us. And in that, we find our meaning, our purpose, and our standing.

Do in us what you need to do, for your glory and our joy. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.