Leave the Light On

Luke 2:8-15

December 13, 2020 • Mount Pleasant UMC

Yes, Tom Bodett, leaving the light on for you. Way back in 1986, Tom Bodett was building houses in Alaska and also contributing stories for NPR’s show All Things Considered when an advertising executive heard him on the radio. He was looking to hire someone for a Motel 6 ad campaign and thought Bodett sounded like the sort of person who would stay there. (If I were Tom Bodett, I’m not sure how I would take that!) When they recorded the commercial, Bodett ad-libbed the last line, “We’ll leave the light on for you,” and it was a hit. Bodett has been the voice of the motel chain ever since; his voice has even been used by the motel for their wake-up calls. And that line that he made up on the spot has become inseparably connected to the brand. Motel 6—we’ll leave the light on for you.

I can't drive by a Motel 6 without thinking about that line. It makes you feel like someone is waiting on you, someone is ready for you, someone wants to see you. When someone says they’ll leave the light on for you, it makes you feel wanted, invited and special. In this Advent season, we are looking at the Christmas story from a different perspective, rediscovering the joy of community, and this morning I want to connect that phrase (“leaving the light on for you”) with the night-shift shepherds. You remember that they were “keeping watch over their flocks by night” when they had an unexpected group of visitors. This morning, let’s allow these shepherds to give us another angle on how Christmas is a season where we make room for others, where we celebrate the joy of community. First, though, let’s hear their story.

So let’s talk about these shepherds. Last week, after worship, I got a text commenting on how so far this Advent season I’ve blown up your nativity scenes by removing the innkeeper, the donkey and the wise men. What was I going to tackle next? Oh, just the shepherds—but don’t worry, I’m not going to take them out of the nativity. They were there that night, so they’re okay to stay! But what do we know about them? Well, for one, they were pretty low on the social ladder, even lower than those with few material resources, like Mary and Joseph (cf. Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 48). The shepherds were pretty much the lowest rung on the ladder. Their testimony was considered untrustworthy in any sort of legal situation, and the oral law of the Jews branded them as “incompetent and undeserving of rescue, even if they have fallen into a pit” (Robb, Making Room, pg. 51). That’s pretty harsh! Most of the time, they were not welcome in town, partly because they had a reputation of letting their sheep graze on other people’s land since they didn’t own any land of their own. It’d be like your neighbor constantly letting his dog do his business on your lawn; that’s exactly how people felt about shepherds. Now, you may remember that King David, Israel’s greatest king, had been a shepherd boy, and there are many positive images for shepherds in the Old Testament. But that was a long time ago, and by the first century, shepherds were despised (Hamilton, The Journey, pg. 113). By the way, this speaks to the truth of the Gospel stories; if you were going to make up a story, you wouldn’t have shepherds as your primary witness.

So, Luke says, they are “living” out in the fields, which tells us something about the time of year this likely happened. No, Jesus was most likely not born on December 25. That’s a date for Jesus’ birth that appears sometime late in the fourth century; before that, no one really celebrated his birth. The focus was on his death and resurrection. But over time, there grew a desire to celebrate and remember the moment when God became human, when he stepped into our world. December 25 was likely chosen because on the Roman calendar that was the winter solstice. It was the point in the year when the days started getting lighter, when (in ancient thinking) light triumphs over darkness. So it was a symbolic choice because they didn’t really know when Jesus was born. You didn’t get a birth certificate in the first century; people didn’t keep track of such things like we do now (Hamilton, Incarnation, pg. 131). However, we know that if the shepherds were in the field, it was probably springtime. That’s the only time they would need to spend all night out with the sheep because that was lambing season; they had to be there when a new lamb was born in case there were any problems (Card 48). There’s another tradition that says the shepherds were tending a flock of sheep who were going to be used in the sacrifices in the nearby Temple in Jerusalem. Those sheep had to be without defect, spotless, and so they would have had to stay close by to make sure they didn’t get hurt. That’s speculation, of course, but it’s possible, and wouldn’t it be just like God to first announce the birth of the ultimate sacrifice to these nighttime workers who are watching over the current sacrifices (cf. Card, The Nazarene, pg. 89)?

So there they are—I picture them seated around a fire, swapping stories—and suddenly there is an angel in their midst. I wonder, sometimes, how in the world you describe such a scene. Luke puts it this way: “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified” (2:9). That’s pretty vague; what did it look like, do you suppose? What would you do if an angel suddenly showed up, broadcasting the glory of the Lord? What would you do if suddenly everything you had believed was proven absolutely, 100% true? What would you do if an angel appeared with a message from God just for you? “The glory shone and they were terrified.” Michael Card poetically describes it this way:

How do you capture the accents of angels?

How do you put words to the taste of their light?

You cannot describe how their words burn right through you

How you became dizzy with heart-pounding fright (“A King in a Cattle Trough”).

The King James Version (and Linus Van Pelt) says, “They were sore afraid.”

One angel, then a whole “company” of angels, and pretty soon the shepherds are on their way to Bethlehem to see the newborn king. Suddenly, the lambs in the field were not as important as the lamb who was lying in a manger. Now, again, Bethlehem was not a big city. At this time, it maybe had a population of 300, and the angels had given them two signs to look for. First, swaddling clothes (2:12). All babies were wrapped in swaddling clothes, special newborn wrappings designed to keep their limbs straight and protected (cf. Card, Luke, pg. 49). Luke, being a doctor, uses the medical term to describe those clothes. But if everyone used such cloths, why would the angels mention them as a “sign”? Could it be because this baby was born in a home not expecting a birth? Another way this has been translated is that he was wrapped in “rags.” He was probably wrapped in makeshift cloths, at best, something they threw together. But the more telling sign is the second one: the child will be lying in a manger (2:12). Mangers are not where you found babies. Mangers are where animals found their dinner. So even in poor Bethlehem, a baby lying in a manger would be unusual; that’s probably the real sign they went looking for. And when they found him, they were allowed in. Not only had they come into town, they had been allowed into someone’s home, and knelt by a newborn baby. These sorts of things were simply not done in proper, kosher, Jewish homes. And yet, Luke gives no indication that Mary and Joseph had any concern about the shepherds’ presence. I daresay these shepherds were never the same because this baby and his parents welcomed them into their home. That night, they became part of the community of the king.

You've heard me talk before about the way the society in Jesus’ day was divided into different groups. Many scholars say it’s wrong to talk about “Judaism” in the first century because it was more like “Judaisms.” There were many different expressions of their faith, sort of like how there are a lot of different expressions of Christianity today. And we all think we’re right, just like each group in first-century Judaism believed they were right. I often say that’s why eternity will be so long; God has to straighten all of us out! But, back to the first century: you had the Pharisees, whose name meant “separated ones.” They believed in holiness, in trying to live out the commands of the Jewish law perfectly. You’ve also probably heard me say that of all the groups in Israel at the time, Jesus probably agreed with the Pharisees the most—when it came to doctrine. He tells the people to follow what they teach, but don’t follow what they do (cf. Matthew 23:1-4) because they didn’t live out what they expected everyone else to live out. Jesus’ squabbles with the Pharisees were really family feuds. Then there were the Sadducees: the elite, the priests, the wealthy, the ones who controlled the Temple in Jerusalem. In modern terms, Pharisees were the conservatives and Sadducees were more liberal. Sadducees denied resurrection and eternal life and many of the core doctrines of Judaism but they had the political power. And there were Essenes and Zealots and other religious groups, and then there were the ones on the outside. The sinners. The outcasts. The ones who were not welcome anywhere.

“Sinners,” or the unrighteous, were those who didn’t keep the Jewish laws. They weren’t kosher, which meant they didn’t keep the dietary laws. Some of them were diseased, which kept them out of the community because diseases like leprosy were often seen as a curse from God. Others of them were considered ritually unclean; perhaps, like the shepherds, their jobs made them “unfit” to approach God. There were any number of ways to become ritually unclean, like having a baby. Mary has to go to the Temple after the birth of Jesus, for instance, to present the sacrifice for purification so that she can become “clean” again (2:22). And, of course, then as now, there were those whom “good religious people” didn’t associate with: those who drank too much, those who cursed too often, and those who were loose with their morals (cf. Robb 52). In that society you didn’t mix and mingle with people who were unrighteous, who were sinners. Keep your distance, or their sin might infect you, too.

And, more than that, they had this idea that even God had to be protected from sinners. In 1871, a French archaeologist discovered what has come to be known as the “warning stone.” It once stood at the entrance to the Temple in Jerusalem and served as a “Do Not Enter” sign to keep the ritually impure people out the 37-acre complex that made up the Temple in Jesus’ time. The inscription on the stone reads like this: “No foreigner may enter within the balustrade around the sanctuary and the enclosure. Whoever is caught, on himself shall he put blame for the death which will ensue.” I find it ironic or at least interesting that it’s written in Greek, which was not the native language of Israel, but it was the common language of the day, sort of like English is today. But a Greek sign prohibiting foreigners from entering the Temple area? A warning that “sinners” were not welcome.

But do you know where they were welcome? At the manger. The shepherds, the outcasts, find that Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus have, in essence, “left a light on” for them. They learn that no matter how “unclean” they might be, they are still valuable to and wanted by God. The angels came to them, of all people! The angels announced the most important birth in history to people who would not be welcome at the Temple for regular worship! God has left a light on for them. God has remembered them, and that’s why, when they leave the manger, they are forever changed. We’ll read the whole story on Christmas Eve, but here’s how Luke describes their departure: they “returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told” (2:20).

The story of the night-shift shepherds causes me to ask two questions this morning. First, who are the shepherds in our lives today? Who are the people who are “outside,” forgotten, lonely this Christmas season? Who needs to know that they are welcome at the manger? There is plenty of darkness in our world today. There are the “current issues” we know all too well: this coronavirus that is on the rise again, the racism (both blatant and hidden) that threatens the fabric of our society and tears at the relationships around us, the political tension that has seeped into Advent. You can’t turn on the news without hearing about these issues and more and how bad things are. Add into that mix the issues that never seem to go away—rampant immorality, addiction issues like alcoholism and drug abuse, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse. Depression and suicide brought on by loneliness and isolation are at epidemic levels. And while we ignore it, sex slave trafficking is increasing around the world and even right here in our own home. It does not take much effort to find darkness in our world. It’s not hard to find people who are despairing, people who are lost, people who feel left out. These are the night-shift shepherds of our world.

And it’s easy to curse the darkness. It is easy to get on social media and rant about everything wrong with the world—and argue with people who disagree with our solutions. I’ve seen that happen, especially online, during this political season—this long political season that we’ve been enduring. And I’ve seen friends lost and relationships broken because of things said, because it’s just easier to curse the darkness. But is that the Christian approach? Is that the method Jesus used? Or did he, instead, come to be light in the midst of the darkness (cf. John 1:5)? Was not “light” the theme of his first night, that night we read about in Luke 2? The shepherds were surprised by the light of the angels, and they took that light from the manger to everyone they found because it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Rather than complaining and moaning about all that is wrong, we are called to be people who are, instead, leaving the light on for those in the darkness.

So we wanted to give you an opportunity to do that in a unique way this year. I mean, what is there that hasn’t been unique about this year? As I hope you heard this week, we’re going to transform Christmas Eve into a different sort of service, a “socially-distanced” parking lot Christmas Eve service, where you come in your cars, we’ll read the Christmas story from Luke 2, we’ll light candles and sing “Silent Night” and “Joy to the World.” But it’s after that, after we’ve blown out the candles, that I want to invite you to “leave the light on” for someone. There are still night-shift shepherds in our world today. There are people who work all night and most of us rarely give them any thought. We’re glad they are there, but we don’t give them much thought. A couple of summers when I was in college, I worked the midnight shift (we called it the “graveyard shift”) at Denny’s in Lafayette, and it’s miserable and lonely. It’s a whole different world. So here’s our opportunity: after our parking lot service, we’re going to invite you and your family to take a care package to a modern-day night-shift shepherd. It might be someone who works at a convenience store, or in the ER, or at the police or fire stations, or any number of other places. We’re going to have locations chosen and we’ll send you out to a whole lot of them all across the city. Or you can choose one of your own, if you prefer. The point is to shine the light of Jesus’ love into some often dark places in our world, to remind people that they are not forgotten and that they are loved by the baby in the manger. Several years ago, a group from the church I was serving then did something like this, and on Monday we had a message on the voicemail. The caller said they were having a really bad night, but the people who came in from church turned it around. The light they shone that night made a real difference. Jesus did not come to leave people out; he came to welcome them in and he leaves the light on for everyone. So, details will be coming about this opportunity, but I hope you save some time after Christmas Eve worship for your family to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.

Now, here’s my second question, a little more personal: who are you leaving a light on for this Christmas season? Several years ago, Max Lucado wrote a short novel called “The Christmas Candle.” It was made into a decent movie; maybe you saw it. Both the book and the movie tell the story of a candlemaker in a small English village called Gladstone. The candlemaker, Edward Haddington, is heir to a long line of candlemakers and, more importantly, heir to the promise of the Christmas candle. Two hundred years before, an angel had visited the Haddington candle shop on Christmas Eve and touched one of the candles that had been made for the church’s Christmas service. They discovered that whomever received that candle on Christmas, if they took it home, lit it and prayed, they found their prayers answered. That angel had continued to visit the shop every twenty-five years and the same thing would happen. Lucado’s story focuses on Edward and his wife, Bea, and when the angel visits on this particular Christmas Eve, Edward trips and knocks all the candles over. He has no idea which candle is the one the angel touched. Not knowing what to do, he begins handing out candles all over the small town, and lo and behold, prayers are answered everywhere. But Edward and Bea have a prayer of their own. Their granddaughter had left town some time before because she was found to be pregnant out of wedlock. She was ashamed, but Edward and Bea’s only prayer is for her to come home. Now, I don’t want to ruin all of the story (or the movie) for you, but suffice it to say Edward and Bea leave the light on for their granddaughter. Like the father of the prodigal son (cf. Luke 15:11-32), they are waiting and always longing for her to come home. And, to me, the story makes me wonder, not about magic angelic candles, but about who it is that I’ve left the light on for. Who in my life needs the touch of the Savior? Who needs to be welcomed in to the manger, to the presence of the baby of Bethlehem?

It’s easy for us to think about so-called prodigals in our lives or in our families, people who have gotten themselves in all sorts of trouble, and yes, we need to leave the light on for them. But also think about even the so-called “successful” people in our world. I’ve heard it said before that the devil will often trip us up the most by giving us exactly what we hope for, what we want. When I hear testimonies from people who have lost everything, from people in Celebrate Recovery or other such ministries, it’s often evident that those folks know their need of Jesus and his grace. When they come to the end of themselves, they’re so very thankful for the light that was left on for them. But it’s the people who are confident in their own abilities, who believe that they have achieved everything they want on their own, who are blinded by their success to their need of Christ—those folks are often the ones who most need a light to shine on their pathway. There’s a prayer we would pray at one point in the Walk to Emmaus weekend, a prayer that goes something like this: “God, bless the one who needs your grace the most and also the one who believes they need it the least.” Who do you know who is walking in darkness this Christmas? Who needs grace? Who needs you to leave the light on for them?

We spend a lot of time and energy picking out the perfect gifts for our loved ones. We wander the aisles, we navigate Amazon, we think about what they would like or how they would look in that outfit. We decorate and we bake and we organize and we wrap, trying to get that perfect Christmas feel. Experts estimate that we will spend about $1,000 apiece this year on gifts, decorations and food for Christmas; so, a family of four will spend on average about $4,000 trying to have the perfect holiday season. (By the way, that’s down about $50 per person from last year, probably due to COVID.) But do we spend as much time and as much energy—or even more—sharing the best gift of all? Do we help people remember what the season is all about? Do we, with our words and with our lives, find ways to “leave the light on” so that everyone can be welcomed to the manger?

Because we tend to want to harmonize all four Gospels, we often miss the fact that each writer has his own focus, his own reason for sharing the story of Jesus. Luke, for instance, is really focused on the least, the last and the lost, of which the shepherds are just one of the earliest examples in Jesus’ life. They are the least in society, they are the last in line, and they are lost because they’ve been excluded from the worshipping community. The least, the last and the lost, the night-shift shepherds, the overlooked people in our own world and in our own lives, people in the darkness who don’t even realize how dark it is. The lonely, the unloved, the forgotten and the overlooked. Fractured families, neglected children, hurting students far from home. All around us, we find the least, the last and the lost, the ones who are most on Jesus’ heart—all the time, not just during this time of the year. Who will leave the light on for them? Who will shine a candle into the darkness to help them find the way home? Who will make room for them, helping them find the joy of true community? Will it be you and me? Let us pray.