Fingerprints of the Trinity

Our Lord crafted the universe with great precision — complete with finely tuned laws governing biology, gravity, thermodynamics, energy, motion, magnetism, light, sound, and all other aspects of creation. NASA planetary scientist John O’Keefe wrote, “We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures…. If the universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that…the universe was created for man to live in."

The universe was not only created with genius and precision; it was created to demonstrate great beauty. It was fashioned by God with characteristics to correspond to our senses of sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. Creation teaches us about the glory and goodness of God. Even the Psalms tell us that “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1). Our triune God teaches us about Himself through the wonders of creation.

Thus, we should not be surprised that the Trinity has expressed an affinity for tripartite designs in the universe.

Our entire universe has been defined by three components — space, time, and matter. And each of these components can be further broken into three divisions. Space has three dimensions — length, width, and height. Time can be summarized as the past, present, and future. All matter exists in one of three states — solids, liquids, and gases. The entire exterior of our world is dominated by earth, sea, and sky.

The smallest of atoms features three microscopic components — protons, neutrons, and electrons. The nucleotides of the human genetic code are each identified by three individual codes (i.e., “triplet codons”). Sir Isaac Newton discovered three laws of motion. All of the various colors of the spectrum stem from just three primary colors — red, blue, and yellow.

Likewise, human actions can be summarized in terms of thought, word, and deed. A liberal arts education is often presented according to the famous medieval Trivium — grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Grammar is broken down into threes — three forms of nouns, three persons of verbal use, and three degrees of adjectives. Aristotle proposed three laws of logic — the laws of identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle. He also identified three components of quality rhetoric — ethos (character), pathos (emotion), and logos (reason).

Indeed, there are many tripartite structures reflected in the designs of our triune God.

Resurrection & the Stench of Death

When Jesus commanded the men to roll away the stone covering Lazarus’ grave, Martha voiced great concern saying, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days” (John 11:39).

In virtually every culture on earth, men go to great lengths to conceal the decomposition of the dead, because the body’s decay signals the permanency of death. Muslims require a quick burial. In our culture, we even pay people to fill our corpses with preservatives to ensure our bodies don’t rot or stink before burial. The Handbook on the Gospel of John explains,“According to popular Jewish belief there was no hope for a person who had been dead for four days; by then the body showed recognizable decay, and the soul, which was thought to hover over the body for three days, had left.” Thus, when Jesus demanded access to Lazarus’ body, it would have seemed extraordinarily insensitive to the grieving family.

A Word from the Classics

The famous Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky captured this fear of decomposition in his 1880 classic, The Brothers Karamazov. In Russian culture, the premature decomposition of the body was considered evidence of a corrupt life. In one of the novel’s most pivotal events, the Christ-like Father Zossima died. As they prepared his body for a public viewing, the monks discussed whether to include ventilation in the room to help avert the odor of death. These monks concluded that “the anticipation of decay and the odor of corruption from the body of such a saint was an actual absurdity.” But when Father Zossima’s body began to emit a terribly foul odor on the very first day of his viewing, everyone was stunned. The monks concluded, “It must be a sign from heaven.” Thus, Father Zossima’s legacy was trashed.

Friedrich Nietzsche, perhaps history’s most wicked atheist, appreciated the writings of Dostoevsky — even though he was a devout Christian. Two years after The Brothers Karamazov was published, Nietzsche published The Gay Science — offering his harshest attack against Christianity. Nietzsche, who ended his life in utter insanity, ironically penned the famous parable of a “madman” searching for God.

“Whither is God?” he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers…. Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God’s decomposition? Gods too decompose.God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

In a chilling response to Dostoevsky’s novel, Nietzsche argued that God was nothing more than a decomposing corpse, and — like Father Zossima — God was also corrupt. With this premise, Nietzsche then penned a philosophy, which remains popular on college campuses. Without God, he argued that all meaning and ethics should be reduced to the mere struggle for God’s throne. And like the madman, Nietzsche asked, “What are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"

Do you live as though God is living and active in your life — supreme over all else in this world? Or do you live as though Jesus is still in the tomb? The darkness of Nietzsche’s mind reveals the sharp contrast of faith and unbelief, and it should lead us to worship the brilliance of Christ with greater fervor. If Jesus remains dead, Paul wrote that Christians are to be pitied above all men. The permanency of the grave would extinguish any purpose or hope for our lives. Though we would continue to endure the devastating hardships of this life —depression, addiction, disease, fear, division, hatred, betrayal, injustice, tyranny, hunger, poverty, and loneliness, there would be no purpose to our lives. Death would be guaranteed the final word, and it would forever steal any significance from your pain.

While Nietzsche’s philosophies are extremely abhorrent on many levels, they do present us with an alternative reality of what life would be like if the resurrection were not true. When Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection and the life,” this was no small statement. It floods our lives with eternal significance!

If Christ is our only hope to overcome the effects of this fallen world, then it would make much sense to conform our hearts and minds to that of the Apostle Paul, who wrote:

I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish… that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own (Philippians 3:8-12).

Jesus came into this world to purchase us from the fate of death, but he is no stranger to suffering. As the early church father Gregory Nazianzus explained, “He began His ministry by being hungry, yet He is the Bread of Life. Jesus ended His earthly ministry by being thirsty, yet He is the Living Water. Jesus was weary, yet He is our rest. Jesus paid tribute, yet He is the King. Jesus was accused of having a demon, yet He cast out demons. Jesus wept, yet He wipes away our tears. Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver, yet He redeemed the world. Jesus was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, yet He is the Good Shepherd. Jesus died, yet by His death He destroyed the power of death.”

Purpose of Suffering… “That They May Believe”

One of the most profound miracles in John’s Gospel is the resurrection of Lazarus. In this story, we not only learn that Jesus has power over death, but we receive precious insight into the character of our Savior and the purpose of our suffering. Prior to the death of Lazarus, both Mary and Martha (the sisters of Lazarus) pleaded with the Lord to come and heal their brother.

So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:3-4).

Mary and Martha clearly believed that Jesus had the power to heal their brother, and they believed that Jesus was the Messiah (John 11:27). However, Jesus wanted to teach them a far more beautiful lesson about His lordship — one of the most difficult lessons in the Christian life. Jesus wanted the sisters and his followers to recognize that our sufferings are never pointless. Lazarus suffered “for the glory of God.” Two chapters earlier, Jesus likewise taught his disciples that a man who suffered blindness from birth had endured this hardship so that “the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3).

Jesus wanted to teach his disciples that our greatest glory is found when we invest our sufferings to advance His kingdom. The Lord could have healed Lazarus prior to death. God could have prevented his illness altogether. However, Jesus intentionally waited until Lazarus was dead before making the perilous trip to Bethany. When Jesus announced to his disciples that Lazarus had died, he also told them that he had deliberately waited for Lazarus’ death “so that you may believe” (John 11:15).

While Jesus had ordained that Lazarus would die for his glory, this was not a cold and callous exercise for Jesus. The Gospel of John tells us that upon seeing Mary and the other mourners experiencing genuine grief, Jesus “was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.” Indeed, “Jesus wept” with them.

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:38-43).

Neither the sufferings of Lazarus nor the tears of his sisters were in vain. Instead, the Lord invested their sufferings to advance His gospel and to enable a large crowd of mourners to witness the power of Christ in overcoming suffering and death. In fact, John tells us that “many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him” (John 11:45). When we meet Lazarus in glory, we will also meet many Jews who embraced Christ upon seeing His power to overcome Lazarus’ sufferings.  

Likewise, as we suffer through the great hardships of this life, we must realize that Jesus is not indifferent to our pain. He remains the same God who wept alongside Mary! Our God “intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). However, the Lord also has a purpose for our sufferings! To the watching world, the power of Christ is most amplified in the midst of our sufferings! When we trust that God is using our most intense sufferings to advance his greater purposes, our sufferings are given purpose — even beauty. In our fallen world, everyone is faced with some degree of suffering. As we walk through these painful seasons, the Gospel of John calls upon each of us to ponder this question: “Do I trust that Christ is good, and He will use my suffering to advance His glory and my good?"

My First Sermon... in a Catholic Church (2002)

When I first dedicated my life to Christ in early 2002, I was attending St. Helen's Catholic Church in Vero Beach. I immediately began donating my time to all sorts of programs within the church... finance committee member, youth group director, and stewardship team. I even helped to develop a youth mass for Sunday nights with contemporary music. I can remember getting into a little trouble for telling the kids that confession and the infallibility of the Pope was nonsense. Nevertheless, Father Edwards was bold enough to allow me to deliver a ten-minute sermonette on stewardship (giving). But I preached the following message:

Good Morning and Happy Fathers Day. (June 16, 2002)

Today, we give thanks to all of our dads. I certainly don’t know where I would be without my dad. He has always been a source of love and support regardless of the circumstance that I had backed myself into. When I was young, whether in good times or in trouble, he would remind me of the talents that God gave me. What an enormous boost that would give me as a young boy! I can remember that he had a poster that hung in his office. It was a picture of a young boy with a pouting look on his face, his arms crossed and it read, “I know I’m special because God don’t make no junk”. How true it is! Often times, it is hard for us to really grasp this simple reality. We are all beautiful people… children of God. Yet, we clothe ourselves (our self-images) in our shortcomings: Marital problems, financial hardships, our disappointments, our health, loneliness, or even problems with the Church or maybe a lack of a good relationship with God.

Our church should be a place where we can lay these shortcomings down and leave them behind… where we can experience the fellowship that the Lord intended for Christians to have, a place where we can leave feeling refreshed and charged by the Holy Spirit, and a time during our week that we look forward to… every Sunday.

I may not have gone to school at St. Helens, but I grew up in the Church. I was an altar boy for nine years. I have been a member of St. Helens for nearly twenty years as a regular parishioner. My parents raised me to be a good Christian, but it wasn’t until this past year that I really got it. I was at a point in my life in which I was overwhelmed with stress, guilt, and frustration. I did not have any major problems in my life. I just couldn’t handle the problems that I did have. I did not know how to ask God for help. I had always looked at God as a reactive God.

He was the umpire and I was the pitcher. At this time in my life, I was getting shelled. I felt like there were no outs and the bases were loaded. And I had nothing left to throw.

It was hard for me to ask God for help. After all, the umpire never comes out to check on the pitcher’s arm. It was while I was in the dumps and I felt like a black cloud was over my head, that God showed me another one of his roles. He is our Coach. He called time-out, calmed me down, and got me re-focused on what’s important. I needed the break, and I realized that God is not just an objective judge. He wants us to win.

There are going to be times when I face problems that I can not solve… there will be shots from the plate that make it beyond the reach of my glove. That is why He provides us teammates. With the Holy Spirit and all my Christian friends, I do not feel like I am responsible for covering the entire baseball field. And that’s why he gave us the Holy Spirit and each other. The pitcher cannot chase flyballs to the outfield from the pitcher’s mound and expect to catch them. Likewise, there are problems that we cannot solve alone. We need share our life with God and each other, and that is what Stewardship is all about. God not only wants for us to share our time, talents, and treasure… God wants us to share our problems, our friendship, and enthusiasm. We need to yield our life to God. After all, he brought us in to this world, and he will take us out.

God wanted us to be supportive of each other. Jesus called us to be fishers of men. But many of us, including me, come to mass… week after week… and never introduce ourself to the person right beside us. Is that a Christian thing to do? Jesus called us to be fishers of men, but many of us don’t even know the people in our own boat. Folks! Look around. How many people do you see that are my age? It is time that we get our lines in the water.

It’s time that we get back to the basics of being a Christian. Sure, it is easy to let your mind get caught up in the headlines: pedophile priests, embezzling scandals, and cover-ups. It’s sickening.

But we cannot afford to take our eye off of the ball.

I would like for you to imagine that you are lost. You and those around you have been living your lives in sin; you are ignorant that Jesus Christ, our savior, even exists. One day, a man comes into your town. He is teaching all about Jesus, his teachings, and his miracles. Soon, you see the lives of those around you begin to change. Your own life is dramatically changed, and you build a great relationship with God. Of course, you admire the man who showed you the way. He was responsible for the most important conversion of your life, and you are convinced that he is a great man because he has dedicated his entire life to Jesus.

Now imagine that one day your mentor abandons his faith. He commits what is probably the most terrible sin in history. How would this affect your faith? Would it be shaken? Shattered? Would you walk away from the Church? Would you walk away from Almighty God?

I am not speaking of any Catholic Bishop.  2000 years ago, Jesus handpicked Judas (who would later betray him) to be one of twelve apostles. Was this a mistake? No. Jesus knew that he was to be betrayed. He announced it at the Last Supper. So, why didn’t he flee for safety? I believe that He wanted to show us one more time that man is fallible. 

Judas was fallible. Peter denied Christ three times at Christ’s roughest moment. Peter was fallible. They all doubted Christ in the rough seas before Christ stilled the waters. All of the apostles were fallible. Yet, Christ selected each of them. 

In the Catholic profession of faith, we claim to be a part of a Catholic and Apostolic Church. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word apostolic as: “Of or relating to an apostle.” This Church is apostolic! We carry our roots in the apostles… in sinful men. Should we blame Christ for his selection of fallible men? Of course not! All men were fallible. Man is no less fallible today. Does that make these despicable actions acceptable? No way. But, it once again reminds us to place our trust… our faith… in God alone.

We will all face a judgment. After all, life is a terminal illness, and we cannot pitch that perfect game necessary to win the game on our own merits. Regardless of how we live our life, we will enter the bottom of the ninth… down by one on the scoreboard. Then, the game cannot be won with our pitches. It is much too late to reverse our pitches from earlier innings. Even if we could reverse our pitches… no man, by his own actions, is worthy to enter the Kingdom of God. You will have given your all, and it will not have been enough. But it is while we were down, hopeless, and ashamed (in the bottom of the ninth), that Jesus came to bat “clean-up”.

And with that… we will see victory.

There are too many people in this world that are putting themselves through an unneeded “shelling”. They are chasing fly balls to the outfield from the pitcher’s mound with no chance of catching them, they are going to bat for themselves in the bottom of the ninth, and they will lose if they play alone. They need a Coach, Teammates, and Fans. And with the right support and the Grace of God, the umpire will find us safe at home.

We should crave that for ourselves and for those around us. This Father’s Day… That should be something that all moms and dads desire for their children. It is certainly what God, our Father, desires for us … He wants us to win!

Loving Past the Auction Block

The woman’s figure is disgusting,

It is wretched on display.

Purity? Beyond her reach!

Condemned by our dismay.

One look at our society

And the red lights burn your eyes.

The hopelessness that’s bred today

Is treated like a prize.

Yet, she stands without expression,

And her shame is buried deep.

Her life has grown so worthless,

And her love is now so cheap.

Her face is chalked in make-up,

Any beauty is a fraud.

Forsaken by the world she hates,

Too ashamed to seek her God. 

Each day she spews her venom,

Her despair is up for sale.

She rejects the hope of love,

She has trashed her wedding veil.

Yet, there’s one who shows compassion,

And will treat her like a queen.

This whore is His beloved.

To us, she is obscene.  

Like Hosea bid for Gomer

Upon the auction block,

The Lord poured out His blood

To bring sheep back to His flock.

The woman is a trash heap —

Cast out by all who see.

She has failed to meet our standard.

At one time, this whore was me.

Let me not look away,

Teach me to love her face.

A hypocrite can cite Your law,

Help me to live Your grace. 

So when we’re in Your Kingdom,

And You gaze upon Your bride.
I will have shown compassion
To Your beloved — for whom you died.

The DNA of Sin

Pride is at the root of our insanity! It fools us into believing that we are the centerpiece of existence; it is at the foundation of all sin. But you were not created for yourself; you were created to glorify God by loving him and being loved by him. One could argue that the DNA of sin is self-obsession. Consider your own sins. Each and every one of them can be traced back to self-absorption. To be completely honest, even your best deeds are tainted by selfish motivation. We often do good deeds so that others will notice us. We only love when it serves our interests.

John Calvin once referred to men’s hearts as “idol-making factories,” and we ourselves are the chief idols. We exalt ourselves, and we desperately search for anything that might serve our purposes. In their book Holding Hands and Holding Hearts, Richard and Sharon Phillips explain:

We are all worshipers, and whatever we worship we rely upon and serve. For many men, success is the god they worship and serve. For others, it is fame or pleasure. Women often worship beauty or falling in love. Whatever it is, we worship it because we think it will make our lives work. It will secure us against a hostile world, it will give us satisfaction — in short, it will be our Savior.

Scripture calls upon us to worship and serve the Lord with all of our heart, yet each of us is plagued by a desire to “worship and serve created things rather than our Creator” (Rom 1:25). We look for anything — other than God — to fill the gaping holes in our fallen lives. Ask yourself: “What petty aspects of your life receive more attention than does your God?” Sadly, if you are like most people, then you will have a lengthy list of “created things” that trump God.

Why are men so prone to idolatry? Quite simply, we will chase after anything and everything that might provide us a moment’s pleasure without requiring us to answer to an authority greater than ourselves. The Lord openly demands nothing less than our lives, but idolatry tricks us into believing that we can be the masters of our own existence. When a man is guilty of idolatry, the object of his pursuit inevitably becomes his master.

Idolatry leads us to fill our calendars, empty our wallets, and pour out our souls in search of the world’s empty affections, but such affections never fully satisfy us. Nevertheless, we continue to devote our hearts to any vice or promise that might exalt us or fill our heart for even a moment. Meanwhile, we have completely ignored the God who has promised us far greater than we could ever ask or imagine (Eph 3:20). At the end of an idolatrous life, man has not only offended God, but his self-imposed independence has left him empty, alone, and spiritually impoverished.

All men are guilty of such treason against God. The Lord has lavished man with love and goodness. In return, we remain openly rebellious. Surely God would be justified in pouring out His wrath upon us. In his book, The Supremacy of God, John Piper wrote, “In our proud love affair with ourselves we pour contempt…on the worth of God’s glory. As our pride pours contempt upon God’s glory, His righteousness obliges Him to pour wrath upon our pride.” 

The wise King Solomon warned his sons that “pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov 16:18).

Wicked Shepherds and the Hope of Bethlehem

Jesus declared, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me — just as the Father knows me and I know the Father — and I lay down my life for the sheep” (Jn. 10:14-15). In today’s culture, it is unlikely that we know many shepherds. However, of all the professions in the Bible, one quick survey through the Scriptures reveals that God has a very special place in his heart for shepherds.

Ø  Abel, who was murdered by his brother Cain, was a shepherd (Gen. 4:2).
Ø  Abraham, the father of our faith, was a shepherd (Gen 13:5).
Ø  Isaac, the son of promise, was a shepherd (Gen. 26:14).
Ø  Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, was a shepherd (Gen. 30:32).
Ø  Each of Jacob’s sons — including Joseph and Judah — worked as shepherds (Gen. 47:3).
Ø  Moses, the great deliverer and prophet of the Old Testament, worked as a shepherd (Exod. 3:1).
Ø  David, the great king of the Old Testament, was a lowly shepherd boy (1 Sam. 16:11).
Ø  Other notable shepherds include the prophet Amos (Amos 1:1), Rachel (Gen. 29:6), and the shepherds (Luke 2:15) who heralded the coming of baby Jesus.

When we consider the list of notable figures who worked as shepherds in the Old Testament, it would be easy to assume that shepherding was a very noble calling. Yet nothing could be further from the truth! By Faith, the official magazine of the Presbyterian Church in America, published an article explaining:

Next to lepers, shepherds were the biggest nobodies in Israel. Shepherds were denied basic civil rights. They were not permitted to testify in court, because it was assumed that all shepherds were dishonest. They were not allowed access to the temple.

Likewise, the authors of the New American Commentary offer this cautionary advice:

One should not romanticize the occupation of shepherds. In general shepherds were dishonest and unclean according to the standards of the law. They represent the outcasts and sinners for whom Jesus came.

In studying the history of this profession, it becomes obvious that the Gentile cultures also held shepherds in low esteem. For example, according to Greek mythology, Hermes was the patron god of thieves, merchants, and shepherds. Apparently, the Greeks also found these professions to be compatible. In the thirteenth century, the Germans coined the word “crook” to denote the curved shepherd’s staff that was used to hook the back legs of stray lambs. In time, this word crook was used to identify dishonest thieves.

While many notable figures in the Bible were shepherds, the Bible invests much more ink in addressing the great wickedness of Israel’s spiritual shepherds. When Jesus calls himself the “good shepherd,” he is distinguishing himself from the typical shepherds of Israel — the bad shepherds.

The shepherds of Israel regularly used their positions to exploit the people. Read through Ezekiel 34. The shepherd’s wickedness infuriated the Lord. These so-called shepherds would “only take care of themselves” (Ezek. 34:2). In his indictment against them, God declares, “You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally” (Ezek 34:4). Isaiah condemned these leaders for leaving Israel as “sheep without a shepherd” (Is. 13:14). Jeremiah condemned them for “destroying and scattering the sheep” (Jer. 23:1). Zechariah wrote that God’s “anger is hot against the shepherds” (Zech. 10:3). Thankfully, God does not leave us to these shepherds. The Bible repeatedly refers to the Lord as our shepherd. Isaiah declared, “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart” (Is. 40:11). And the Lord promised, “I will rescue my flock” (Ezek. 34:8).

When God becomes flesh and enters the world, he does so in a remarkably beautiful manner! The book of Micah contains one of the most famous messianic prophecies, regarding the birth of Jesus. God declared:

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth… And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace… (Micah 5:2-5).

This prophecy proved true. Our “good shepherd” was born into the most humble of circumstances. The lowly town of Bethlehem could not make room for its Creator. At his birth, he was not placed into a crib worthy of God, but a feedbox for animals. He was not welcomed into a palace worthy of kings, but a darkened cave used to shelter livestock. The first smells experienced by Jesus were polluted by the excrement of animals. And the first witnesses of the divine Messiah were lowly shepherds.

When God selected a worship team to honor his newborn son, he did not seek out priests or prophets, but shepherds — the outcasts of Israel. Imagine the surprise of these shepherds when the Lord honored them as the first witnesses of the Messiah! Surely these shepherds were familiar with rejection, but God chose to reveal his glory to them — assuring them that the good news of Jesus was “for all the people.” These shepherds — along with famous prophets like Moses and Ezekiel — were included among a select few in all of redemptive history who were privileged to witness the brilliant glory of God.

While this offers us a beautiful picture of God’s love for outcasts, the selection of these particular shepherds was far more profound! According to the Mishna, the sacrificial animals slaughtered in Jerusalem’s temple to atone for sin were actually raised up in the nearby pastures of Bethlehem. In his book Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ, Alfred Adersheim explains: 

On the night in which our Savior was born, the angels’ message came to those who were “keeping watch.” For close by Bethlehem, on the road to Jerusalem, was a tower, known as Migdal Eder, the “watchtower of the flock.” For here was the station where shepherds watched the flocks destined for sacrifices in the Temple…. Those shepherds who first heard tidings of the Savior’s birth, who first listened to angels’ praises, were watching flocks destined to be offered as sacrifices in the Temple. 

These lowly shepherds were sent to Jesus — the “lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (Jn. 1:29). The Lamb of God was born in a stable reserved for animals destined to be slaughtered, and it was not blind chance that led God to choose these “watching shepherds.” Jesus referred to himself as the “bread of life” and the “good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.” It was no small coincidence that Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem and placed into a feeding trough for the flocks. Israel’s Messianic King was born in the very fields where Israel’s great king David tended his flocks. The Lord, who is sovereign over all of history, was preaching a message in the nativity story.

The town of Bethlehem was the perfect intersection for Jesus birthplace. Bethlehem was known as a house of bread, and Jesus was our Bread of Life. It was a place for shepherds, and Jesus is our Good Shepherd. Its fields nourished the lambs that were to be slaughtered for sin, and Jesus came as the Lamb of God. It was the dwelling place of kinsmen redeemers (i.e., Boaz), and Jesus came to pay our debts. Lastly, Bethlehem was the birthplace of kings! And Christ is our king!