"The Usual Suspects" - The Shepherds

Just who were these shepherds that Luke has in his version of the Christmas Story? Why pick them? What was their role to be?‘

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.’ Luke 2: 8-20

The shepherds in our Christmas pageants wearing bathrobes and towels on their heads accompanied by those cute little white sheep with black noses have little in common with what the reality looked liked all those years ago. To be a shepherd in those days was to be in a lower class of society—somebody that most people did not want to relate to.

The shepherds in Palestine 2000 years ago were kind of like our modern-day migrant workers—they had jobs that many people didn’t want. They were seen as “unclean” and couldn’t even go into the synagogue. So why then do they turn up in this story? Was Luke making a point by including them, a point which said that Jesus’ ministry was really aimed at the poor and the marginalized?

Remember that according most scholars today ‘the most probable date for its [Luke’s] composition is around 80-100 AD, and there is evidence that it was still being substantially revised well into the 2nd century’ [Wikipedia].

This means that the author of Luke had the advantage of hind-sight into the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. He was writing after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, when the religious stability of established Judaism was under threat. The tiny offshoot that would come to be known as Christianity over time, was fighting for its very existence in that time of chaos.

So then what was ‘Luke’s’ real message in giving such a prominent place to the riffraff of society? Was he looking to attract to this newly-minted branch of Judaism the lower classes of society, by giving them a part in the birth narrative and thereby saying to them that they were part of the beginning of this movement? Or was he looking at the teachings of Jesus that had come down through the decades to the time he was writing and echoing those teachings of compassion and respect for individuals regardless of their status in the community?

Of course there is no way of knowing what went on in the mind of the writer of this gospel so many centuries ago. But perhaps instead of seeing the shepherds in their bathrobes in our Christmas pageants, we should really be seeing children dressed up as street people... not as cute and cuddly perhaps, but nevertheless sending out the real message of the Christmas story in this present day.

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