The Shepherd’s Voice

In the beginning was the Word:
Word here in the Greek is logos meaning speech, something communicated to humans. God spoke the world into existence and in the process the world became God’s very nature. You could say part of God’s DNA is in all aspects of the world.

And the Word was with God:
The angels proclaimed to the shepherds, see this thing that has taken place. A child is born. God incarnate, God with flesh on.

And the Word was God:
God’s witness to us of a created order became real in the essence of one baby, one man in the flesh. And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.

For some, such a story is still just nonsense; it’s far fetched, hard to believe. How about for you? Does the story have street cred in your mind? If so do you live what you believe?

I find it hard to live what I believe. There are things in my life that would be totally different if I fully lived out my belief.

There was once a man who did not believe in God. He didn’t hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays like Christmas. He was honest. His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have faith in God, in Jesus, despite his disparaging comments.

One snowy Christmas Eve, his wife was taking their children to a Christmas Eve service in the farm community in which they lived. She asked him to come, but he refused.

“That story is nonsense!” he said. “Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man? That’s so ridiculous!” So she and the children left, and he stayed home.

After a while the winds picked up, the snow turned into a blizzard. It was a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening.

Something had hit the side of the house, thump! He looked out, but couldn’t see more than a few feet. When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside. In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese. If you’ve never seen a Canadian goose up close and personal, let me tell you they are something very beautiful to behold. Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn’t go on. They were lost, stranded on his farm, with NO shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. A couple of them had flown into his house.

The man felt sorry for the geese. The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought. It’s warm and safe; they could wait out the storm there. So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn’t seem to notice the barn. They were afraid to enter. The man tried his best herding techniques, but to no avail, it just seemed to scare them, and they kept moving further away. He tried some bread, broke it up, and made a breadcrumb trail leading to the barn. They still didn’t catch on.
He was getting frustrated. Every time he’d steer them to the barn they only got more scared. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.

“Why don’t they follow me?” he exclaimed. “Can’t they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?” It was very cold. He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn’t follow a human. “If only I were a goose, then I could save them,” he said out loud.

He went into barn, got one of his own tame geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese.

He then released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn–and one by one the other geese followed it to safety.

He stood silently for a moment thinking about what he had done. His words that he had spoken minutes earlier replayed in his mind: “If only I were a goose, then I could save them!” Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier. “Why would God want to be like us? That’s ridiculous!” Nonsense! Suddenly it all made sense.

Are we like geese, lost in a storm? Jesus talked about people in his ministry this way, “because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matt 9:36) (like geese without a leader)

The geese—were blind, lost, perishing just as we are in this secular world. God had His Son become like us so He could show us the way and save us, be our example. Jesus is our example.

For this brash man years of doubt and disbelief vanished like the passing storm. He fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer: “Thank You, God, for coming in human form to get me out of the storm in my own life!”

I think we all wrestle in our own way of knowing God, seeing God with flesh on, being aware of God’s presence, understanding God in a way that makes sense in our own lives.

That’s not all bad. Martin Luther believed the God, outside of Christ was hidden and unknowable. Notice I said outside of Christ…God is unknowable. Jesus is knowable, we have witnesses. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

There was a Jewish historian, a Roman Citizen named Josephus. He not only provided historical writing for the Jews, but also to the Great Roman Empire. Josephus lived from 38-97 AD. Josephus witnessed first hand what happened after Jesus died. Josephus was like a newspaper writer noting current events. Josephus wrote, “Pilate condemned Jesus to be crucified and to die…. His disciples… reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive.”

The history of Jesus Christ was recorded by someone who was there at that time but did not believe in Jesus as God.
Lee Strobel wrote a whole book about this – he was a skeptic, a writer who did not believe, until he did the research himself. His book is called The Case for Christ.

Strobel also says this: some people question whether many of Josephus’ recorded comments were really accurate, but in A.D. 115, Tacitus, the most important Roman historian of the first century had some additional things to say about this man Jesus. “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus…” These are written statements by real historians in real time.

There were many other 1st Century historians, Justin Martyr, Philo of Alexandria, and Tertullian, all recorded Jesus Christ impacting the world! The Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th edition, devotes 20,000 words to the person of Jesus Christ and never once hints that He did not exist! Many very legitimate history books record the existence of Jesus Christ on earth!

If history were the only arbiter of past Christian reality I would stop her, case closed, but that is not the way for most of us. If you are an intellectual Christian maybe something I’ve said thus far has struck a chord, maybe it has validity for you, but for others they would say so what.

I’ve been reading a book recently that I received for Christmas from my son. It’s called Blue Like Jazz. The author Donald Miller has a unique writing style, almost like being inside someone else’s head, sort of a stream of consciousness.

For Miller he is constantly going back and forth between being a Christian and living as one for whom Christ died. We all like to be known as Christians, especially at church that’s an easy label to accept, but living out our faith – a whole different story. We have to be kind to others, say good things about them, show compassion, put our money where our mouth is, share our faith.

Here’s what Miller says about sharing his faith:

“For me, the beginning of sharing my faith with people began by throwing out Christianity and embracing Christian spirituality, a nonpolitical mysterious system that can be experienced but not explained. Christianity, unlike Christian Spirituality was not a term that excited me. And I could not in good conscious tell a friend about a faith that didn’t excite me. (How about you?) I couldn’t share something I wasn’t experiencing. And I wasn’t experiencing Christianity. It didn’t do anything for me at all. It felt like math, like a system of rights and wrongs and political beliefs, but it wasn’t mysterious; it wasn’t God reaching out of heaven to do wonderful things in my life. And if I would have shared Christianity with somebody, it would have felt like I was trying to get somebody to agree with me rather than meet God. I could no longer share anything about Christianity, but I loved to talk about Jesus and the spirituality that goes along with a relationship with Him.” (p115-116)

And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. I want you to meet Jesus today. Jesus said to feed the poor and heal the sick. I’ve never done much about this, have you? Jesus said love my neighbor, those who persecute me, I’m not very good in doing that either, how about you?

Meeting Jesus is about coming face to face with our own humanity, our own failures recognizing God’s grace in the process – God please forgive me today for my failures, my sin. Amen