The Real Meaning of Christmas: Ops

As an Operations Director, I love Christmas. This might sound weird but the Christmas Story is full of clues about how God loves ministry Operations and is himself the first Ops Director (see Genesis 1 and 2). I’m referring primarily to the role of the shepherds in the Christmas story. Shepherds were uniquely qualified to fulfill God’s purposes in the coming of Jesus.

For a refresher on the shepherds,  check out how Linus explained the real meaning of Christmas .

Shepherds are the kind of people that have made the show Dirty Jobs a huge hit. I’ll quote right from the Dirty Jobs web site: “DIRTY JOBS profiles the… unsung laborers who make their living in the most unthinkable — yet vital — ways. Our brave host… introduces you to a hardworking group of men and women who overcome fear, danger and sometimes stench and overall ickiness to accomplish their daily tasks.”

If there was ever a dirty job, it’s being a shepherd. Sheep are not smart, they live outdoors and their filth sticks to their wool. Shepherds must stay with them outside of the city and in the ancient near east that meant that shepherding attracted, shall we say, those without many other options. This “outsider” status bred suspicion and detachment and earned a reputation so poor that shepherds were not even allowed to testify in court.

Of course, these are the folks God chooses to be the first witnesses of the birth of the God/Man.  God loves outsiders. But he didn’t choose them only because of their lowly social strata; he chose them also because of their job; their dirty job.

Shepherds abiding in the fields near Bethlehem would have been those who tend flocks eligible for sacrifice in Jerusalem. Every Hebrew knew the importance of spotless lambs for atoning sacrifice (see Exodus 12); this made them a valuable commodity. Shepherds would carefully select spotless newborn lambs and keep them spotless by hiding them in stone enclosures (what we call a manger, cf. Job 39:9) and protecting them by wrapping them in special garments to preserve their clean wool (what we know as “swaddling clothes”). This is why the angel says that it will be a “sign” to them to go to a refuge of spotless lambs, and find in the garments of spotless lambs, a child. The shepherds were chosen because their dirty job, though grotesque and incomprehensible to more refined society, qualified them to see and explain who exactly was born to Joseph and Mary: the spotless Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

God chose the shepherds so they could tell Mary that her son was the spotless Lamb of God, despite the precarious and unsanitary events leading up to Jesus birth. You can imagine Mary having doubts that she is bearing God’s son if “the Father” can’t even make sure they have a decent hotel to stay in. Instead of a hotel, God confirmed for Mary through the Shepherds that God really was fulfilling his word and working all things according to his will.

God chose the shepherds because their job of service to the people of God qualified them to understand the coming of the Kingdom of God in the garb of lambs prepared for sacrifice.

God chose the shepherds because their lowly state in society made them the ideal witnesses to the coming of the savior. No one would believe them on account of their resume, pedigree or gravitas. Only those who despaired of their own good works and ached for the “good tidings of great joy” would believe their report that the Lamb of God had entered history to “save us all from Satan’s power when we had gone astray”; tidings of comfort and joy, indeed. This passage from James 2:5 says it well “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?”

God still today uses “operations” people behind the scenes of ministry to help others worship, find atonement and experience the grace and truth of the gospel. Their role is to serve in humility and anonymity so that others can find Jesus. Sometimes God pulls back the veil and lets “Ops” people see the significance of their mundane labors.  And God can use anybody to help another to hear the gospel, because the good tidings don’t depend on the credibility of the messenger, but rather the “power of God unto salvation for anyone who believes” – Romans 1:16.

If you have skills in logistics, accounting, media, design, event planning, and (most importantly today) programming, please text “ops” to 85005 to help serve behind the scenes so that everyone would hear the good news about the Savior who was born, lived, died and rose again.

Merry Christmas