CMLC 2024-12-24 Sermon (Midnight)

Day one.

I'm a shepherd.

It's not glorious, it's not fame-seeking,

but it's what I do.

My dad is a craftsman.

He's been working between Bethlehem and Jerusalem for some time,

but he's seen the work that I produce.

He said, son, I love you deeply.

You are not meant to be a craftsman.

But you see, I'm also not really a best student either.

I'm not someone who's going to be learning under a rabbi.

I'm not meant to be one of the future scribes.

So here I sit, a bunch of sheep around me,

a bunch of crazy guys over here hanging out with me,

but they've got my back.

Whenever we know that someone may be out there

and looking to steal what we have,

we sit with each other, we guard each other,

we take turns sleeping.

It's not glorious, but it's good work.

And frankly, it's good to know that what you're doing

matters to the people around you.

It's a good day.

Day 20.

It's kind of weird.

So apparently everybody has seen something really strange today.

I don't really know how to describe it well.

I'm going to do my best, but it's a little intense.

We're out there in the middle of the night,

just kind of looking out, rambling, talking.

I think some guys might have had a little bit too much cheer.

But all of a sudden, everything gets super bright all around us.

And we end up hearing voices.

It's really strange.

It's hard to describe.

We see someone huge floating in front of us, wings everywhere.

And he starts going on about great joy.

I don't know.

I mean, I'm just freaked out seeing it.

But I start hearing things about swaddling claws

and the Christ, a Greek, I mean, the Messiah essentially.

But just when I thought it couldn't get weirder,

then all of a sudden a whole bunch more of them are everywhere.

But all of them are different.

Some of them have like four wings.

Some of them have six wings.

I don't know.

I keep thinking that they're supposed to be little babies that are cute.

These are not cute babies.

These are huge.

And one of them was like covered in weird eyes.

I don't know.

I tried not to look at that one.

But they're freaking us out.

They kept seeing fear not.

And we're like, good luck with that.

But they keep saying we're supposed to go see this baby.

I don't know what's going on, but one way or another,

we need to go figure out what's going on.

Everything seems like it's going to be different now.

Day 21.

Well, we found them.

All right.

Tobias, he was over here.

He heard something where they mentioned a manger.

So he had the great idea.

Probably we need to look for a place with a bunch of animals.

We start searching around and we hear a baby coming out of a cave.

Well, lo and behold, we go in there and we see a baby in a feeding trough.

I mean, that's not normally where you find a baby.

But we go in there and we're ecstatic.

We're excited.

Everything's amazing.

And we are like, God, whatever you are going to do, please do it now.

I mean, life around here is not easy.

All right.

We're constantly being pushed down like government issues,

taxpayer issues.

Frankly, people even just mad at each other depending on whether they are or not living

too close to Samaria.

I don't know.

But we need something to change.

All right.

And so we're over here and I don't know what this baby is supposed to do.

I thought maybe I was expecting a little halo around its head or something.

I don't know, kind of seems pretty basic to me, but you know what?

I don't know what's going on, but I'm going to tell everybody, everybody I see.

All right.

Whatever may be going on.

I don't care if they think I'm drunk.

I'm still going to go do it.

Day 30.

So I ran into that family again, the one that we found in the cave.

You know, it was really cool to be able to see them again, but it just seemed a little too normal.

You know, I'm kind of waiting to see something exciting.

I mean, you know, angels up in the sky.

The problem is though that some of the other guys, they started going back on it.

They figured, well, you know, we must have probably had something in the bread.

Maybe somebody put a little too much in the wine skins.

It's like we all saw the same thing.

I mean, it couldn't be fake, could it?

But you know, I see this family and you know, we're wandering around town over there and I look and I mean, the dad is over there looking for work.

You know, he met my dad earlier and they were talking about doing some jobs together and the mom is feeding the baby.

I mean, I guess the baby eats the same way other babies eat.

I guess that must be normal.

I mean, they circumcised them.

I don't know just everything about this.

It just feels really surreal.

I don't know how to feel about this.

It's just too normal.

Day 730.

Okay.

Definitely proof that something is going on.

All right.

There were a bunch of random people that came in.

They were dressed really strangely.

All right.

Now I get it.

I'm just, you know, a regular everyday shepherd just doing my shepherd thing.

But okay, I know when somebody is special and different and there are a bunch of these guys coming in.

All right.

I don't know.

They were coming from somewhere east of here somewhere past Jericho.

I don't know.

I don't go past Jericho, but somewhere out there.

All right.

And they're looking for this family and they seem very intent on it.

All right.

So they're coming over here and they brought a bunch of gifts.

I mean, I mean, I really couldn't peek in too far, but I saw them hauling some stuff from those camels they had.

All right.

And it seemed pretty wealthy.

I mean, I don't know what's going on here, but something special is happening.

You don't just have random people visiting you when you're just a normal baby.

Right.

I mean, clearly this baby is special.

Right.

He has to be.

Right.

Day 740.

They left.

They left.

They're gone.

The family is gone.

I don't I don't know what to tell you that they're gone.

All right.

Apparently those random people from out of town, they apparently must have said something to the king.

Freaked him out.

And apparently he decided that it was time to take care of whoever this future king could be.

Started going around and any of the babies that were too or younger.

I mean, I mean, it was a few dozen, but for a town like Bethlehem, I mean, that's pretty terrible no matter what.

I mean, this this couldn't possibly be what it means for the Messiah to come.

Right.

I mean, if the Messiah is here, how is it that they can still hurt us like this?

The Messiah is here.

Why are we still suffering?

Day 4,380.

I saw that kid.

All right. He's, you know, he's older now.

All right.

You know, now I've been I've been doing some other stuff.

All right.

You know, I've got my own employees now.

Okay.

You know, it's, you know, Seth and family.

All right.

So we've been doing a bunch of stuff.

Okay.

Me and my brothers, we got a lot going on.

Okay.

You need some sheep.

We got you covered.

All right.

We are there.

We're happy to take care of you.

Well, the problem is though, is that you really got to go over to Jerusalem because that's the place you really need to take care of things.

All right.

Because that's where the sacrifices are at.

Right.

So, hey, we moved the business.

We went over there and lo and behold, who do I see coming in?

All right.

Now, I didn't recognize the kid.

It's been a while, but the mom, I mean, she was just really, she was a sweet kid whenever we saw her before.

You know, she's grown up a bit.

Same face.

We know her.

That kid, man, he's kind of annoying me.

All right.

I'm sorry.

It's like he walks along.

I mean, actually, he's kind of like a little bit.

You know, maybe better than us a little bit.

And then what happens?

All right.

Like he ends up like getting lost and what's he doing?

He's hanging out with all of these teachers and talking as if he knows stuff.

I mean, come on.

Look, okay, I get I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.

I'm not the pointiest pencil in the stack.

All right.

Whatever.

But come on, kid.

You're like, what, 12?

I mean, what do you know?

You know, why are you acting like this?

What?

Why is anybody actually paying attention to you?

What's so special?

I don't get it.

I don't get it.

But you know what?

You caused a lot of problems for the rest of us.

So maybe you just need to go back to where you came from.

All right.

Day 10,950.

Now look, I've been doing this business for a long time.

All right.

Business has been good.

All right.

Now we've got a little spot, you know, around the temple, right?

You know, there's the outer area, the Gentile Court.

I mean, nobody really pays attention to it.

But we got ourselves a prime spot, like right there in the corner.

All right.

People can come in.

We're like right by the people exchanging the money.

You know, I mean, you can't pay for anything without this one specific coin.

Okay.

But we're selling all of our animals over here.

It's great.

Okay.

We've got a really prime spot, right?

Okay.

Everything's been going well.

Well, guess who decided to show up?

Okay.

Yeah.

Same kid.

All right.

He's all grown up and stuff now.

He's got disciples.

I mean, come on, dude.

I know, I knew your dad.

All right.

We all knew.

Okay.

I mean, he may not be with us anymore, but dude, what are you thinking?

You didn't study with anybody.

Why are you walking around acting like this?

Why do you, why is anybody even listening to you?

But you know what he does?

He knocks over everything.

All right. He scatters all of our stuff.

All right.

I spent a long time carving out this spot for the business and what is it?

Go and he's like yelling, you know, den of thieves.

What do you have?

Dare you?

I'm not a thief.

I'm a merchant.

Stop getting upset at me.

Okay.

Look, I guess whatever your business is, it's not doing as well, but stop taking it out on us.

Okay.

Look, we've got things figured out.

Stop messing with us.

All right.

Just leave us alone.

We don't have time for this dude.

Day 10,955.

Guess who got what he had coming to him?

Yep.

Yep.

That little punk, he is off and he's arrested now.

Okay.

All right.

So he's off doing his thing.

All right.

And he ends up annoying the wrong people.

All right.

And so now, you know, he's getting what's coming to him.

All right.

Look, you just caused way too much trouble, dude.

All right.

Look, I don't know what it was that we were drinking that one night, but you are nothing special.

Okay.

Look, you just need to be, just get out of the way.

We don't have time for this.

But you know, I don't know what was up with that guy pilot.

I mean, I think he's a little too soft on crime.

Okay.

And he's like trying to like release somebody.

Okay.

I think he's got like a soft spot for this kid.

I don't know what it is.

All right.

But he's trying to be like, Hey, I can release somebody to y'all.

All right.

Here's Jesus.

Right.

I mean, you can choose.

Here's Jesus or this guy.

And he, I mean, look, he picks this guy.

He clearly didn't think anyone was going to vote for him.

He's Brabis.

All right.

He's, you know, he killed some people, but you know what?

I'm, I'm sure they had it come into them.

Okay.

Look, here's the thing.

Stop messing with us.

All right.

We're not going to buy into your little game.

So you know what pilot?

All right.

We'll go ahead and pick Brabis.

Hey, release Brabis to us.

Go ahead.

We got this.

Yeah.

You know what?

You try to mess with us.

You know what?

Hey, that guy's got to come into him.

All right.

Go ahead.

It's time.

Yeah.

Go ahead and send Brabis to us.

You know what?

He's probably not going to be killing any other people anyway.

I mean, come on.

What's the worst he's going to do?

Day 10,956.

Yesterday was weird, y'all.

You know, that, that, that guy, he was, he was heading over for the crucifixion.

I, I guess I hadn't really actually, I never really watched the crucifixions before.

I didn't really, didn't really want to.

You know, a bunch of us, we had some, we had some, we had some, we had some, we had some

rocks, we were kind of like throwing them at them.

You know, it's kind of fun, you know, just messing with them.

I saw his mom, she looked at me.

Yeah.

It didn't feel too good.

Didn't feel too good.

And you know, I was, I was expecting him to, I was expecting him to, I was expecting him

to act like a brat the whole time.

But he actually was acting like a really nice guy.

Didn't feel right.

Everything got dark.

And I just kept having this feeling like, why did I pick Barabbas?

Was it really that big a deal that he knocked over my tables?

Was it really that big a deal that he was smarter than me?

I don't know what to do with this feeling.

Maybe, maybe if I go hang out with a voice tonight, we can just forget about it.

Day 10,960.

I've been waiting 30 years for this.

I've been waiting 30 years.

And I didn't know what it was that I was waiting for.

I saw him.

I saw him.

I saw him there.

And then I see him walking.

I don't, I don't know, I don't know what to do with this.

I don't, I saw him.

And the whole time I was so sure that what I had seen was just in my head.

But I saw him.

I've been waiting so long to see something and now I have, and I don't know what to do with it.

I don't know how to get my mind around it.

I don't know how to feel about it.

But man, I don't, I don't like the person I've been.

But do you think that maybe, maybe if I just pause,

maybe if I go back and talk to him again, do you think there'd be a place for someone like me?

Because it'd be really nice to know if he could forgive someone,

someone who saw it for himself and still did all this.

Do you think maybe he could still forgive me?

Thanks be to God.