Christingle 2014

Well, this year I went to another Christingle service on 7^th December.  The 7^th! That felt so strange, because for me Advent is all about preparing ourselves and the Christingle service means that Advent is over and Christmas has started.  It means that the presents are bought, most of them are wrapped, the advent calendars are all but finished, the food is ready to prepare for Christmas dinner, and the excitement level has been turned up to 11.

And it means that the message of Jesus is here amongst us.  We’ll talk a bit about the Christingle later, but for now let’s talk about the message.

The reading we’ve just heard is all about the Angels announcing Jesus’s birth to some shepherds, and it’s very important that it was shepherds. Now I wanted to take you through the reading step by step, but I can’t really do that without having some shepherds. If only we had some shepherds.

Anyway, there were some shepherds living out in the fields not, as we have all probably sung, washing their socks but watching their flocks.  That means that they were looking after sheep, at night. They probably should have washed their socks because hanging out with sheep is a bit of a sweaty and smelly job. They’d be a pretty grubby, grotty lot.

And it was probably quite cold out in the fields, maybe even raining, so the shepherds would’ve been chilly, possibly shivering…

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When suddenly an angel appeared and scared the shepherds…

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Now it’s not every day you see and angel so you can imagine the surprise and fear they felt. The angel said, don’t be afraid, I’ve got good news for you, and not just for you, but for everyone.  In Bethlehem, the town where King David was from you’ll find a baby wrapped in cloth in a manger. This baby has been chosen by God to come and free everyone from fear and captivity.

Next thing there were huge numbers of angels in the sky singing about God’s greatness. It would have been more spectacular than the X Factor and Strictly finals combined.

The angels then went up to heaven and the shepherds set off to find this chosen one, the Messiah.

But the angel had said where to go exactly and Bethlehem was pretty full that night. So the shepherds put their heads together and had a think.

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They knew that the baby would be in a manger — that’s a feeding trough for animals, a bit like a big dog bowl.  So this baby was probably in a place where they kept animals — a barn or a cave (they didn’t really do stables in those days) — but which barn, which cave?  So the shepherds would no doubt have to go knocking on doors, asking if anyone had a baby in their barn.

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Probably leaving someone behind to look after the sheep.

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When they finally found Jesus and Mary and Joseph they would’ve bowed down to worship the Messiah,

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And then go and tell everybody what they’d seen, probably knocking on doors on the way back to their sheep, all the time saying how amazing God was.

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So why shepherds, why not the priests of that time, why not the writers, or the silversmiths?

I think God chose the shepherds for two reasons: firstly because their job was to look after sheep, and that’s important.  David was a shepherd before he became king, (probably in the same area where these shepherds had been huddled together for warmth), before that Moses was a shepherd before leading the Israelites to the promised land. Some of the prophets were shepherds too. Later, Jesus would call himself the ‘good shepherd’, meaning that he looked after the people.

The thing about shepherds is that they learned to care, and if they could care about sheep, they could care about people.

The other thing about shepherds is that they were pretty poor.  They hired themselves out and were treated like peasants: so even though they had a very important job to do, people saw them as being pretty grotty types.

But when Jesus grew up, he used to hang out with all the grotty types, thieves, beggars, lepers.  If he were to come to earth today who do you think he would spend his time with?  People on benefits, disabled people, people in trouble with the police, people who take drugs and drink too much, that’s who.

God picked the shepherds as the first ones to see Jesus because he wanted us to know that he loves everyone, it doesn’t matter what job you do (or don’t do), it doesn’t matter how good or bad, how clever or stupid, how busy or lazy you are. He loves everyone.  That means you and you and you and you….

So when we get our Christingles in a bit I want us to remember that the things represent are there for every single one of us. Even the smelly shepherds.