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Let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which the Lord hath made known unto us.

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᛭ INI ᛭

Many prize the shepherds because, well, they lived in the Judean equivalent of “fly-over” country. Some might commend the shepherds for their faith or even their actions. But few, very few, imitate their words, their actions. Few, very few, live the shepherds’ life of faith and love. Many, a great many, are like the people who saw and heard the shepherds that first Christmas night—they simply marvel but do not imitate. “Don’t you think that there were many people who considered them fools and bereft of their senses because they dared, as crude and uneducated people to speak of the angels’ song and message?” (LS 37)

They dared not only to evangelize what they’d heard from the angel’s sermon, but they acted upon it themselves. They gathered around the altar of the manger to worship the Son of God born in human flesh for them and all. (Anything that holds the flesh of Christ is properly called an altar—manger, cross, even here.) Afterwards, they return to their vocational responsibilities. In their move from angelic sermon to Christ in His flesh then back to their shepherdly duties, we see the full scope of what it truly means to be a Christian.

If these shepherds hadn’t believed the angel, they wouldn’t have gone to Bethlehem. They wouldn’t have done anything like we’re told in the Gospel. But if someone says, “Obviously, I’d also really believe like them if the message were preached by an angel from heaven,” then that person deceives himself. For whoever won’t accept the Word on its own account, won’t ever accept it because of any preacher, even if all the angels were preaching to him. People who accepts it because of the preacher, only believe in the preacher. That sort of faith doesn’t last long. But whoever believes the word pays no attention to the one who proclaims it. He doesn’t honor the word because of the preacher, but rather he honors the preacher because of the word. He never elevates the preacher above the word. He pays it no mind if the preacher dies, lives godlessly, or even preaches error! He gives up the preacher rather than the word. He remains with the Word—no matter who’s preaching.

This is the real difference between godly faith and human faith. Human faith, clings to the person, believing, trusting, and honoring the word based on who’s speaking it. Godly faith, however, clings to the Word, which is God himself, believing, trusting, and honoring the Word, not based on who’s spoken it. In fact, nobody can ever tear godly faith away from the Word! The Samaritans prove this in John 4: At first, they heard of Christ from the woman, and came to Christ at her word. Now, once they heard Christ himself, they said to her: “We don’t believe anymore because of what you said. We believe His Word and that He’s the Savior of the world.” Everyone who believed Christ because of his person or his miracles abandoned Him when He was crucified. The way it’s now is like it’s always been… It must be the word alone, disregarding the preacher, that satisfies the heart. The Word must capture the man so that he, like one who is imprisoned in it, feels how true and right it is, even if all the world, all angels, all the princes of hell had a different message!

This faith persists, in both life and death, even as in hell and heaven, and nothing can overthrow it; for it rests on the word alone, without regard to any person. The shepherds had that kind of faith, for the cling to the Word so much that they forget that the angels told it to them. They don’t say: “Let us go and see the story which the angels have told us,” but “which the Lord has told us.” The angels are quickly forgotten, and only the word of God remains. Luke also says that Mary kept and pondered the words in her heart, and that without a doubt, she was not troubled by the lowly estate of the shepherds, but considered everything the word of God. (LW 52, 32–33, alt.)

[The shepherds] also follow through with action. As St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians [4]: “God’s kingdom does not consist in words but in deeds.” So, the shepherds here don’t just say: “Let’s go and see,” but they actually go! Indeed, they do more than what they express in their words; for the text says: “They came with haste.” this is a great deal more than ordinary walking, as they’d agreed. Thus faith and love always do more than they say and their works are in every respect alive, active, and overflowing. Thus a Christian should be sparing with his words, but in his deeds overflowing, as he certainly will be, if he is a true Christian, if he does not act in this manner, then he is as yet not a true Christian. (LW 52, 36-37)

Moreover, the shepherds don’t abandon their work. They kept Sabbath, honored the angelic sermon, followed through and gathered around the altar of the manger, to behold and worship the Son of God born in human flesh for them. They kept Sabbath. They kept the Word of God holy, cherished the Word as Holy—the Word preached to them, the Word made flesh lying on manger’s altar. “They, then, return to their place in the fields to serve God there!” (LW 37) Only those served by God in His Word, those with godly faith in the Word not human faith, will end up serving Him in their fields. For “without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Softly from His lowly manger Jesus calls One and all, “You are safe from danger. Children, from the sins that grieve you You are freed; All you need I will surely give you.” (LSB 360:5) The baby speech gives way to His manly shouts of victory on the cross: “Father, forgive them. It is finished.” So He also softly calls from His lowly mangers, all the places where His Word and Flesh are for you—Font, Bible, Preaching, and Supper. Things not only to wonder at like the people who hear but do not go, but to go, hasten to go, like the shepherds, for in these things there’s “A Savior for you, which is Christ the LORD.”

᛭ INI ᛭