Advent, Day 10: When We Don’t Feel Worthy of God’s Call

Luke 2:8&9 “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid”

We could balk at His choice.

We could imagine a more appropriate welcome committee for God’s touching earth. A grand procession maybe? Flowers flying, shofars blowing. Perhaps a declaration bellowed to thousands of eager fans.

This night God chooses the unlikely, the small in number, the uneducated forgotten.

He chooses to broadcast His birth announcement not to the playmakers, but to ragamuffin shepherds, the cowboys of Bethlehem.

And I love Him for that. These are Jesus’ people. He was born to bring salvation to the ordinary everyday, to the shepherds, to smelly fishermen, to the disgraced woman alone at the well at noon.

God does not need to seek out the powerful to fling His power, beg the famous to reflect His glory to the masses. Would they have rushed to a stable no matter how grand the invitation?

Here He picks the ordinary to be overwhelmed by His glory.

Then, He beckons them covered in the smell of a mass of sheep to visit the newly born, to tiptoe through the stable door, witness humanity’s Rescuer swaddled tight.

The chooses the humble transformed to go tell it on the mountains.

Still thirsty? Enter the mud and the mess and the glory of the Shepherds with Frederic Buechner here. Masterful.

We’re on a journey to the manger with Handel’s Messiah texts as a lectionary, his music to transport us.  Don’t miss a day. Slip your email in the CONNECT square on the front page and let’s continue this pilgrimage together.