The Cast of the Christmas Story: The Shepherds

Purposely, your life, God’s purpose. Listen at OnPurposely.com,

Mark Holland:

The cast of the Christmas story series is sponsored by World Concern and the Global Gift Guide. Find out more at GlobalGiftGuide.org.

Speaker 1:

The cast of the Christmas Story.

Mark Holland:

And continuing our look at the cast of the Christmas story. Different people we read about in the Bible who are part of the early life of Jesus is coming into the world. And today we have another representative of the Grove Church in Marysville. I don’t know how, I think we’ve had three people from the Grove Church participate in this.

Megan Monterrosa:

That’s right.

Mark Holland:

You guys must’ve been one of the first churches to get the memo on this.

Megan Monterrosa:

Yeah.

Mark Holland:

They have with us. Megan Monterrosa. Hi Megan.

Megan Monterrosa:

Hello, Mark. How are you?

Mark Holland:

Really good.

Megan Monterrosa:

All right.

Mark Holland:

Well we got you in here from Marysville. Thank you for coming in and helping us with this. And tell us a little bit about your role there at the Grove Church.

Megan Monterrosa:

Yeah, so I’ve been on staff for about four years at the Grove Church. And what I do is I’m the executive assistant to our lead pastor Nik Baumgart. And then I also lead our Tuesday night dinner Church, which we’ve been doing for two years now.

Mark Holland:

Dinner Church. Well, now what is dinner? I’m very interested. I’ve heard a lot about this.

Megan Monterrosa:

So, it is a lot of fun and we’re doing a lot of great things in the community that we’re seeing God do. So, we actually do this twice every Tuesday night because we got really busy at one point and had to go to two dinners.

Mark Holland:

Really?

Megan Monterrosa:

So, in the same space, we’ve got dinner at 5:30 and 6:45 and people from the community come out. And what we do is we have really great food and then we share about Christ every week when we’re there. And then we have a lot of great conversations around the table, and it is a really wonderful family.

Mark Holland:

Well, they say it all begins with the meal. It’s all about the food.

Megan Monterrosa:

That’s right. That’s right. Always has, even since the early church, so.

Mark Holland:

Even since the early church.

Megan Monterrosa:

That’s right.

Mark Holland:

Well, what do you think, you’ve been assigned the shepherds as part of the Christmas story. Do you think they ate some of the lambs they were shepherding or what were they eating?

Megan Monterrosa:

Well, good question, and I think that’s a great question because this matters the types of lambs they were raising. So, these shepherds actually had the job of raising the lambs for the temple sacrifices in Jerusalem. We know this for different reasons, but they specifically were the ones raising these lambs without blemish. So, these particular shepherds were local as opposed to nomadic, and they had the rights to these fields. And around Bethlehem, a lot of the fields were sown for seed and then they would come in later with animals and graze as they could. But these fields were set apart for raising lambs that had to be perfect.

Mark Holland:

How do you get a perfect lamb?

Megan Monterrosa:

Good question. Well, these shepherds, they would be experts, right? So, they knew exactly. So a lamb, it’s according to the temple standards of God’s sacrifices. So, it had to be without blemish. So, the rules in the Old Testament and of a certain age and all that. So, they had to just raise them perfectly. And I suppose the ones that it could be that they ate the ones who didn’t make the cut. So, these shepherds are special because they would know what that means and they would’ve been raised to understand the meaning of this and why it’s important. And I love that about this story, that God, when he brings the Lamb of God, he shows up to announce it to the men who raised the lambs for God’s temple. I think that’s very significant.

Mark Holland:

Well, they must have had a huge job because-

Megan Monterrosa:

They did.

Mark Holland:

They went through… I want to say billions of lambs, but a lot of lambs were required for this sacrifice stuff.

Megan Monterrosa:

That’s right. You’ve got at least two per day and then on the holidays you have a whole lot more. So, their whole lives were devoted to this whole job. That’s all they did. And they would sacrifice themselves for the lives of the lambs if need be, and this was super important. They would also be a little bit more ceremonially clean. So, the mangers that they would have, they would need to be clean because these lambs could not be infected with anything or not appropriate for sacrifice, so.

Mark Holland:

Well, the shepherds then, they were the ones who kind of heard about it first. Weren’t they?

Megan Monterrosa:

They did, yes.

Mark Holland:

As far as the announcing of the Messiah has come.

Megan Monterrosa:

Yes.

Mark Holland:

And I think your other pastor, he loved the Heavenly Host. He took on the Heavenly Host. He thought that was so significant. Tell us why these humble shepherds.

Megan Monterrosa:

Right. So, what I absolutely love is that you have to know the shepherds are unlikely to be chosen in the world’s eyes because it’s a lowly profession. Even if they’re raising lambs for the temple, they are shepherds. So, they’re not elite, they’re not religious elite, they’re not highly educated. Their job is to clean up sheep dung and to protect them from predators and sleep outside in the field, at least during the summer. And so, they had a really base profession. And so no one would ever think, even if they knew the Old Testament prophecy from Micah about the Messiah coming from Bethlehem, they wouldn’t think that God would ever tell them this. They would probably expect him to announce it somewhere else, maybe in the temple or with the religious professionals, but they would not have been the most likely. And that’s what I love about their story, because they were so devoted and we know from the way that they were responded to what God had to tell them, that they were very, were God lovers.

Mark Holland:

They received it.

Megan Monterrosa:

They did.

Mark Holland:

With joy.

Megan Monterrosa:

They did. And I love that they have a history because David was a shepherd from Bethlehem, as is Jesus really being born there and the shepherd of God’s people?

Mark Holland:

Yeah. Well, so when they saw this Heavenly Host, what did they see? Is this, we hear about this in Handel’s Messiah glory to God, that whole thing’s going on. I would think “They were sore afraid,” it says.

Megan Monterrosa:

I mean, we know there was a lot of light, right? The scripture, there’s a lot of light. First there’s an angel and then there is the Heavenly Host. So, the angel talks to them or they say the glory of the Lord was around them. And then there was, so first they’re terrified, right? Because imagine this blinding light. You could think there was an alien ship or something, right? What’s going to happen? And I don’t know if it would register in your brain that this is a visitation from God right away, but it’s terrifying. So, initially they’re afraid and the angel says, “Do not be afraid, and I bring you great, the tidings” and that message. But then the Heavenly Host appears.

And so, I love that God reassures them right away and then hopefully they could receive. But I think as Jewish men, they would understand that the presence of God is a thing to be feared in the sense of you can die. You can’t just go into God’s presence. They don’t even say his name. And so, they’re very reverent and they would understand this is a big deal. But I love that when the Heavenly Host appears, and you could imagine what did this sound like and imagine, I don’t think they were ever the same because with that visitation, I mean I’m sure it changed their perception of God and themselves having received this visitation, so.

Mark Holland:

Yeah. Well, so they saw this, had this visitation out in the fields, and they were invited then also to the manger. Did they also follow the star or do you think the angels kind of led them along or it doesn’t really say?

Megan Monterrosa:

It doesn’t say whether they specifically followed the star, but here’s the thing, they would know every nook and cranny of Bethlehem, and they would probably know. Now Jesus was born, he was probably born in the home of family members that they were staying with. They just didn’t have room in the guest area of the home, so. But they would know because if they knew everybody, they would know this family, right? The family members, and they would maybe just have to ask around. But the scripture says “They rushed to find him.” And I love that because they started hurrying.

They rushed, it says “They rushed to find the baby” because the angels said, this is how you’re going to know that what I’m saying is true because you’re going to find him in a manger, which again, babies aren’t in mangers every day, right? This isn’t the NICU. This is an animal trough, right? So, it was unlikely. And so that was a confirmation to them. So, they rushed to find and they found him. So, I don’t know if they needed the star or if they just were like, oh, we’re going to find him and they knew the family. But in any case, they rushed to see and they found him and they got to see Jesus. They were among the first people to see him on the day that he was born.

Mark Holland:

And they knew their Old Testament, that they knew that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

Megan Monterrosa:

They did. So, Micah 5:2 specifically says that he will come from Bethlehem, yes.

Mark Holland:

So, they were in the fields out near Bethlehem. And so, you have everyone from the animals, the shepherds, who are just a little bit above the animals as far as place in society. Then the Magi too were there.

Megan Monterrosa:

That’s right.

Mark Holland:

Yeah. Anybody else at the manger scene? I can’t remember.

Megan Monterrosa:

Well, here’s what we know is that realistically we always think of the nativity as just Mary and Joseph. But Mary would probably have her family members around her because in that society, again, you would go to your family for help, a place to stay. And the women were probably with Mary. So, it’s likely to say we have actually the women of the family helping Mary. And with this birth happening, I’m going to guess they probably had the helpful women at least around them at the same time.

Mark Holland:

Well, so what would you say is the main takeaway of the shepherds being so prominent in the Christmas story? What can we apply to our own lives today?

Megan Monterrosa:

This is what I love about the shepherds, is that okay, they were devoted and they love the Lord, but we also know that they have lives of mundane-ness and obscurity, and they did not think they were likely to be chosen for anything special. They probably would spend time out in those fields looking at the stars, possibly thinking about God’s promise to Abraham and Genesis where he says, “I’m going to make your descendants like the stars in the sky,” but wondering, is any of this ever going to come to pass? Right? And in our lives, that happens to us a lot. We often feel we’re an obscurity. We toil in obscurity. We maybe don’t get a lot of recognition, or we’re not like the most likely to be picked. We’re not wealthy or whatever, and we might be going about our daily lives, but when God shows up, he’ll change everything. But what I love is they were so ready for him because their hearts are ready because of their devoted-ness.

So, that when the Lord showed up, they were ready for what he was going to do, and that he picked them in this place of obscurity and they didn’t think, I mean, they would never have dreamed, but God does that for us. And he has this way of entering our lives. And turns out that their mundane job of being a shepherd was among the most important and close to God’s heart in what he was doing in caring for his people through all of history. And in fact, him calling himself and some of scripture’s most beautiful imagery involving the shepherd metaphor. And so, that God would say he himself and his son is a shepherd. And so, that you might think I’m a stay-at-home Mom, or I just go to work every day. But what you do is incredibly important. And in it, if you’re looking, you will find what God is doing and the way that he’s using you and ways that you are close to his heart and fulfilling whatever it is that you’re called to do.

Mark Holland:

Some of the heart of Megan Monterrosa, she’s with the Grove Church in Marysville, people listening to these podcasts and today thinking about the shepherds. Thank you for all the preparation you put into this. People who are listening, why don’t you pray for them? People, maybe you feel a little bit downtrodden there. Are they ever going to measure up or be part of God’s plan? Like you say, the mundane things of life. So, much of life is even from people who are prominent, a lot of it is just routine and mundane.

Megan Monterrosa:

That’s right.

Mark Holland:

And we need to have Jesus in our hearts, whatever position we find ourselves in society, why don’t you pray for those people?

Megan Monterrosa:

I will. Lord, I thank you that you show up in the most regular everyday life, God. That when it’s time, God, you never fail to show up right on time, God, and that you have a plan and a purpose for each person who is listening, God. And I pray for each one, that they would be encouraged, that they would be able to have a little bit more of your perspective on the significance that they have, God in your eyes. Regardless of how the world may see them, that Lord, they would know how much you love them and how you have a very specific purpose for their lives that they’re living, and that as they state devoted to you, God, they can be ever more ready for what you’re doing. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Mark Holland:

Amen. The cast of The Christmas Story series is sponsored by World Concern. You can give a gift with a lifetime of impact. Your gift will meet the critical need of a child or family living in poverty. You can give a goat or one of 43 other life-changing gifts today through the World Concern’s Global Gift Guide. Give life-changing gifts that work together to transform the lives of moms, dads, and children in the world’s poorest places. You can even select a meaningful gift in honor of a friend or loved one. Each gift transforms the life of someone in poverty. Go to globalgiftguide.org. Again, that’s globalgiftguide.org.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for joining us for the cast of the Christmas Story, a series on Purposely Equipped. We’d love for you to take a moment and let us know what you think of this series by leaving us a review. For more podcasts to grow your faith, we invite you to visit onPurposely.com. Until next time.