Of Shepherds and Kings

Luke 2:8-21

Here we have a scene shift during the same event.

8-9

Again, Luke’s setting is quietly evocative of earthy human details. Here we have beasts and men ranging over open grazing fields on a (cold? starry?) night.

Why Shepherds of All People?!

Again, we see Luke’s theo-comic irony at play in the angelic proclamation of Jesus’ birth being made to these rugged workers outside the city and temple and centres of social power and prestige (palaces, aristocracy, scribes and teachers, etc.).

‘The registration of “all the world” asserts Augustus’s sovereignty over that world. Yet the birth of Jesus, God’s Son (1:35), is made known not to the Emperor or even to the Syrian governor, Quirinius, but to peasant shepherds. With the birth of Jesus, the powerful are already being brought down, while the lowly are lifted up (cf. 1:52)’ (Green, 121).

‘All the imagery shows God’s concern for people regardless of their social status or vocation. He cares for all and identifies with all’ (Bock, 55-56).

Are We High On the Way Down or Low On the Way Up?

So, several times now we’ve noted Luke’s emphasis of this divine power-reversal. The question for us is: where do we stand in that scenario?

Are we the powerful and prestigious and privileged who are going to be reversed by God and placed behind or underneath the powerless? In that case we will have to learn to laugh at ourselves as we’re theo-comically humbled.

Or are we the disempowered who know our poverty in the world and before God, who hilariously rejoice at God’s reversal of prideful powers?

God’s gospel reversals may sometimes sound romantically attractive to us, but are we actually willing to live this way? As God’s people, are we seeking power and control in our world or are we taking the lowest seat so that God can exalt us in his way in his time to his glory and the joy of the world? Are we shepherds and peasants or are we emperors and kings? How will the good news of the wonderful birth hit us? As something missed altogether in our places of power, as something to be feared because it threatens our power, or as an occasion for joy, amazement, and deep thinking?

The Shepherd-King

However, it also is significant that Israel’s second and archetypal king (‘a man after my own heart’) was a shepherd lad called from the flock to shepherd the nation and that God also is himself called the Shepherd of Israel in the OT.

Indeed, Micah 5:2 that Matthew quotes as being fulfilled in Matthew 2:6, speaks of the Messiah who will be born in Bethlehem of King David’s lineage as a ruler ‘who will shepherd my people Israel’ (see also Micah 2:4). So on this level it actually makes sense in God’s typically creatively unorthodox design to announce this birth to shepherds. Again, Luke only echoes where Matthew is explicit. But upon reflection, Luke’s echoes resonate quite vividly and powerfully with imagery that teaches us truth in a robust, lasting way.

God’s Temple-Glory Shines Out On a Farm!

This is the first time we’re given the detail that ‘the glory of the Lord shone around them’ – again, this would be a phenomenon mostly associated with the temple (and perhaps also with great patriarchs and prophets).

‘they were filled with fear’ – God’s glory isn’t saccharine and safe! This is a holy and numinous moment of awe and wonder and amazement.

‘Given the respect assigned earlier to the Jerusalem temple and particularly to its sanctuary as the axis mundi—the meeting place between the heavenly and the earthly, the divine and the human—this appearance of the divine glory is remarkable. God’s glory, normally associated with the temple, is now manifest on a farm! At the birth of his son, God has compromised… the socio-religious importance of the temple as the culture center of the world of Israel. Luke thus puts us on notice that the new world coming is of a radically different shape than the former one, that questions of holiness and purity must be asked and addressed in different ways, and that status and issues of values must be re-examined afresh’ (Green, 131).

10-12

This is Luke’s third angelic visitation and announcement.

I love the appropriate supernaturally heraldic nature of the Incarnation accounts – it makes sense that if God were to be born among us as one of us we would find it attended by a virtual flurry of angelic activity. Yet the devious comedic quality of God’s surprising ways is that all this comes to outsiders rather than the powerful, which, though surprising at first, upon further reflection makes sense also. The accounts combine, somewhat strangely, the majestic and heavenly and supernatural with the down-to-earth, natural, and mundane.

‘good news of great joy that will be for all the people’

We hear here echoes of Old Testament euangelion: e.g. Isaiah 40:9-11 (‘herald’ = preacher—announcing or proclaiming or publishing or spreading joyous news, glad tidings; ‘gossiping the gospel’); 52:7 (‘publishes peace… brings good news of happiness… publishes salvation… Your God reigns’).

Conflicting Gospels

But God’s chosen people are not the only ones ‘proclaiming’ events they consider ‘good news’ for the world. At this time, the Roman leaders were spreading a very different gospel centred on a very different person: the gospel of Roman military, political, economic peace achieved by the power and politics of the emperors of Rome.

We will have to stay tuned to see how the gospel claim about Jesus is a totally different way of ‘salvation’ from a truly unique Saviour. But here is a sneak preview:

‘It is to him, because of his death on the cross, that world dominion belongs—not to the clenched fist but to the pierced hand. Jesus, not Caesar (any Caesar, then or since), is lord of history.’ (F. F. Bruce)

Of course, even among God’s people there were competing versions of the gospel of the Saviour. Jesus has to subvert these too.

It is no different today and in each age and era: we preach a unique good news and a unique Saviour and Lord over against competing man-made proclamations of other gospels centred on other lords and saviours. And we also have to humbly align ourselves to the good news the Spirit of the risen Jesus proclaims to us in Scripture and let it subvert our own ‘religious’ or ‘Christian’ expectations and point us to the real gospel and the real Jesus, not those of our own making.

The Commentary of Heaven: JOY for ALL!

Again we hear the consistent note of joy in all these angelic greetings:

‘Jesus’ birth sparks joy, surprise and wonder. All these emotions flow from the experience of the shepherds, who observe with amazement as heaven confesses the child’s identity… The angels present the commentary of heaven on the events of Luke 2:1-7. They identify the child and reflect the heavens’ excitement that this child has come to do God’s work’ (Bock, 55, 56).

For ALL: ‘Though in the original context such a messianic announcement would have been understood as being for the people of Israel, the development of Jesus’ ministry shows that Jesus’ work reaches beyond such national boundaries. The two volumes of Luke-Acts tell the story of how Jesus, the Savior, Lord and Christ, brought salvation to all people regardless of nationality. They need only turn to him (Acts 10:34-43)’ (Bock, 56).

What Child Is This?

Why good news? This is the birth ‘unto you’ of none other than the ‘Saviour, who is Christ the Lord’.

‘The major offices of Jesus are confessed in one sentence: he is Savior, Lord and Christ—that is, deliverer, master and anointed king’ (Bock, 55).

Saviour = Anointed Hero-Rescuer-Redeemer (Divine Warrior)

Christ = Anointed King (Messiah)

Lord = the true Lord and Ruler and Master over all others (Adonai, Yahweh)

The Strangest Sign

Yet again we see God’s devious humour and unorthodoxy in the ‘sign’ they’re given! A newborn baby (instead of a pillar of fire or some other wonder) in a feeding trough! What must the shepherds have thought?

‘The angelic announcement does not come in mystical isolation; it connects to concrete events’ (Bock, 56).

‘It should be carefully noted that the sign given of the saviour’s birth is not a child enfolded in Tyrian purple, but one wrapped round with rough pieces of cloth; he is not to be found in an ornate golden bed, but in a manger’ (Bede, cited in Green, 123).

13-14

Heavenly Host Flash Mob

Imagine that this ‘suddenly’ was the case as the narrative says!

‘multitude’ (‘great company’, NIV)

‘heavenly host’ – ‘a crowd of the heavenly armies’

Considering the descriptions of cherubim and seraphim in Ezekiel 1, Isaiah 6, and Revelation 4, perhaps this host looked more like the strange, wild, terrible, and mythical good armies of Narnia than merely a Roman legion with wings! And again, think how this would affect our Christmas sentiment, greetings, and art! How about a gold gilt illustration of these wonderfully grotesque beings announcing Jesus’ birth and ‘Merry Christmas’! Perhaps then we could recapture some of the wonder, terror, real joy and myth-become-fact of this stupendous time in history.

(But then again, the partially bestial angels are all associated with scenes of God’s throne room and military angels are never described as such—probably leaving us to assume they have ‘normal’ human form except for glorious light and perhaps unusual height and girth? However, some commentators say this is a heavenly ‘entourage’ that usually accompanies God’s throne room – and throne room crew are consistently of the freaky variety.)

‘praising God’ – Luke gives us yet another piece of poetry, this time heavenly and angelic. (These opening chapters are bursting with poetry!)

From God in the ‘highest’ glory all the way down to earth’s neediness.

‘peace among those with whom he is pleased’ (‘peace to men on whom his favour rests’, NIV). Some may have a marginal note like I do that some manuscripts have the more familiar ‘peace, good will among men’ – which emphasises the ‘horizontal’ peace at the danger of ignoring the foundational ‘vertical’ divine-to-human peace.

Grace Universal and Particular

The phrase ‘for all the people’ in verse 10 combined with ‘to men on whom his favour rests’ here in verse 14 brings together the universality and the particularity of the gospel.

The whole Bible tells us that God’s pleasure and favour rests on all men. First of all in creation, and then in that he brings about and then preaches the good news that Jesus died for the sins of the world and rose for the justification of all who will trust him from all ethnicities of the earth.

But the way the angels put it here emphasises, first, that this is God’s doing and comes out of his abundant grace and compassion and kindness, and, second, that we must be receptive to this grace for it to rest on us so that we benefit from it. We will not have peace with God even if we don’t want him and just continue to rebel against him – in that way we thwart his holy love toward us and resist the peace he would bestow on us.

The Peace of God Supplants Man-Made ‘Peace’

‘“Augustus,” the name of Octavius repeated here by Luke, was of religious significance and suggested divine qualities… “The imperial cult, like the cults of the traditional gods, created a relationship of power between subject and ruler.” Augustus received such titles as “Savior” and was revered as the one who had brought peace to “all the world.” Hence, in the Lukan narrative, qualities for which Augustus was extolled are now attributed directly to Yahweh and to God’s Son, Jesus; and qualities previously attributed to the Emperor are now called into question. Thus, for example, that God effects peace on earth presupposes that the “peace of Rome” is seriously deficient’ (Green, 122).

Any purely man-made attempt at peace is gravely called into question by this heavenly birth announcement.

We must ask ourselves: How are we trying to make peace in and of ourselves without submission to our Creator and his plans? Will this work?

15-16

The angels then ‘went away… into heaven’ – I love that trans-dimensional notion of motion and travel!

‘As unbelievable as it may seem, the one with authority over salvation spends his first nights not in a palace but in the open air among simple people like the shepherds’ (Bock, 55).

The manger also has echoes from Isaiah 1:3 and that is why oxen and donkeys have always been depicted at the birth scene. It is a humbling picture for God’s people of how they must relearn the knowledge of him by looking at the animals in their relations to their owners.

17-18

The Word On the Streets

Here we have the phenomenon of ‘gossiping the gospel’ again, quite literally this time! It strikes me that God is probably acting in his usual ingenious way here: not only is he coming to the social ‘nobodies’ so that his de-centralised care for outsiders is in evidence and so that ‘his power is made perfect in weakness’ and the wise and powerful are confounded by the foolish and weak so that all is seen to be of God’s grace.

Not only this, but also this social strata of people are the most effective to rapidly and freely communicate these rumours amongst themselves, whereas the socially elite might have effectively kept such knowledge from the ‘rabble’ (as indeed Herod tries to do in the case of the wise men in Matthew’s account!).

What must the parents and the others have thought when they heard the report of the supernatural tidings these down-to-earth shepherds had just seen and heard! ‘Amazement’ yet again as so frequently throughout the Gospels!

Community Obedience

The parents here receive confirmation of what they had been told: here is another source of angelic visitation to match their own.

Note again that it takes the obedience of certain members of the community to pass on God’s truth to the rest and enable their obedience also. It is interesting too that this huge heavenly announcement was not given to the parents, but to strangers to their family. Yet the parents were given indications (the name Jesus, the title Son of God) that the others were not.

This widens the sense of family and shows the interdependence of the community that God is fostering and that he has ways of drawing faith out of each one of us, giving each of us just enough information to share with each other to build up a reliable picture of God’s plans and purposes that we all might trust and obey him together.

19

Mary’s Hidden Treasure

Like at 1:29 and 46-55 (cf. 66), again we see Mary’s deep and thoughtful faith: ‘Mary depicts the wonder of experiencing the inbreaking of God in her life’ (Bock, 56).

She ‘treasured up’ (hoarded it all away in a secret and safe place to always be highly valued) and ‘pondered’ or ‘mused’—she didn’t just lock away her treasure like a miser and never use or enjoy it except merely to count it up. No, she spends quality time in her heart’s treasure house going over the wonder of this treasure, observing it from all angles, reviewing its details, considering its implications, always open to deeper understanding and ultimately how she will ‘spend’ it or how it will enrich her.

20

Praise and Testimony

Glory and praise – worship is an appropriate response to God’s activity in our lives, especially when it is a step further in bringing about his plans for the whole world.

‘heard and seen’ – evidence, experience (an important notion throughout the New Testament in regard to the Jesus-event—John, Luke, Peter, and Paul all mention this eyewitness theme).

‘as it had been told them’ – The trustworthiness of God’s word is something Luke wants us to see again and again throughout his two-volume work: ‘As they see God’s word honoured in the presence of the sign, they come to testify to God’s work and tell the story of the child… God’s word is coming to pass; his plan is again strategically at work. They break out in praise to God because he has sent Jesus, the Savior, Lord and Christ’ (Bock, 56, 57).

The Promise-Keeping God

In terms of Scripture’s trustworthiness and the reliability of God’s word, it’s not primarily some static truth about a holy book, but a dynamic, experiential truth about the very character of the living, personal God who makes himself known to us as a speaking, involved, promising and promise-keeping God. A God who is always faithful, truthful, reliable, who comes through on his word—he has the power, knowledge, wisdom, justice, kindness, and goodness to be able to speak out his plans and purposes and fully bring them to pass against any odds or obstacles.

Yet all this relates to more than just individuals or even communities and a nation at a particular time and place. It relates to God’s universal salvific purposes in the Christ. They are rejoicing in and pondering this unfolding of the gospel as much as these personal manifestations and graces in their own lives.

Joy, Reflection, Attentiveness

This birth ‘should provoke joy, reflection and attentiveness… Their response exemplifies the awe that should fill anyone who hears Jesus’ story’ (Bock, 54, 56).

So in this final portion of the birth narrative ‘we encounter new possibilities – or, in this case, reaffirmation and clarification of possibilities already introduced. We are thus reminded that Luke 1-2 as a unity is incomplete in itself; it prepares for and, in important ways, requires the rest of Luke-Acts. Jesus is born, as promised, and even identified with exalted titles (2:11), but his public ministry as “Savior” or “Messiah” or “Lord” has not yet begun. Nor is it yet so clear what those titles might mean for how the roles to which they refer might be realized. Although “glorifying and praising God” are appropriate responses to the God at work in these events (2:20; cf. 2:10, 14), reflection or “pondering” is also called for (2:19). What does it all mean? is still a valid question’ (Green, 121).

We have heaven’s unequivocal declaration and affirmation of this Child’s divinely appointed uniqueness and yet still we are left to linger on this heavenly perspective in the midst of life’s daily details. These people don’t ‘get it’ right away and neither do we. We are given trumpet blasts from heaven, but these are calls to begin or continue journeying, seeing where this divine mystery will lead (just as with Abraham and Moses and Israel in the stupendous miracles and then journeying of the OT).

Caesar is ruling from Rome as ‘saviour’, ‘lord’, and (increasingly in the eastern part of the empire) ‘god’, bringer of ‘peace’ and ‘justice’. However:

‘Meanwhile, far away, on that same eastern frontier, a boy was born who would within a generation be hailed as ‘son of God’; whose followers would speak of him as ‘saviour’ and ‘lord’; whose arrival, they thought, had brought true justice and peace to the world’ (Wright, 23).

21

Lastly, we see Jesus’ parents faithfully fulfilling the ritual law, obediently naming him the name the angel had commanded.

Works Cited:
Darrell Bock, Luke
Joel Green, The Gospel of Luke
Tom Wright, Luke for Everyone