Signs are everywhere, they're ubiquitous. They come as advertisements, they come as directions or directives. Signs point to something. The sign itself is not the main thing, but it points to something. A sign that is an advertisement points to your buying behavior. and whoever put that sign up there wants you to act on what information is given in that sign. A sign that you see at the side of the road that says stop or that says speed limit 35 is intended to affect your driving behavior. A sign points to something Here on Christmas Eve we are looking at the sign given by the angel to the shepherds when Jesus was born. And the text in Luke chapter 2 that we're going to look at this evening reads this way. This will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Again, the sign is not the main thing, but it points to something that is intended to affect our behavior. So what were the shepherds to look for? What specifically were they to look for? Scripture says, you will find a baby wrapped in claws, lying in a manger, and this is the sign. The sign that's pointing to something. The sign that is intended to affect our behavior. Now, if you have any awareness of the world around us, you are familiar with the internet. And the internet is a flood of words and images. It is a deluge of information. And sometimes that information is true and helpful and profitable, beneficial. Other times that sign or that flood of information is not so truthful, not so helpful, and can be tremendously misleading. Furtive minds have frequently embellished the simplicity of Jesus' incarnation with details found nowhere else. This last week I was reminded of a statement that Alfred Edersheim made in his classic work, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Edersheim lived 1825 to 1899. He was a Jewish convert to Christianity. His popular scholarly writing is well known and well used even to this day. He said this, this is what recaptured my attention. Legend and tradition tends to surround its heroes with a halo of glory and to supply details that are wanting. Let me say that again. Legend and tradition tends to surround its heroes with a halo of glory and to supply details that are wanting, missing, absent. In other words, the stories get better as the hero gets bigger. details surrounding the birth of Christ, details surrounding this sign given by the angel for the shepherds to look for, is among those details that have been embellished. This last week I found a couple of articles, courtesy of my research assistant, who doubles as my wife, A couple of stories that are illustrative of the embellishment here that we often find in the Christian blogosphere on the internet. Story number one. And these tend to build on each other. Story number one. These ordinary shepherds were not ordinary. but indeed were temple shepherds charged with tending temple sheep, meaning that these particular sheep were destined to be sacrificed in the temple. Further, story number two, these temple shepherds labored tirelessly to protect and preserve these temple sheep as unblemished so that they would be ready and properly prepared for sacrifice. In their preparation, in their protective work, they would swaddle the lambs and lay them in mangers. Further, Story number three, the clause used for this swaddling came from the soiled, bloodied white clothes of the high priest after completing his sacrificing duties on the day of atonement. Further, story number four, When the angel announced the news of these temple shepherds informing them about the sign, the baby wrapped in claws and lying in a manger, they were to search for a child wrapped in the kind of claws they used for these sacrificial lambs. That is, they were to be looking for claws that had previously been soiled by sacrificial lambs on the garments of the high priest. Now these stories, these images are very picturesque. But the question is, are they true? Well, they will often appeal to Jewish practice or ancient tradition. One of the stories that I read this last week purportedly from a Jewish individual who had become a Christian. He said, I have heard dot dot dot. Another one, a little bit more specifically, identified the source of his information from his pastor, but no mention of where the pastor got this kind of information. Well, The source for some of this, at least a seedbed for some of these stories that I just described regarding the sign and a larger understanding of what the shepherds were to look for came from Alfred Edersheim. In that 1883 book that I mentioned, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, He wrote of the possibility of story number one, namely, that the ordinary shepherds that we read about in Luke chapter two were not really ordinary. They were temple shepherds charged with tending temple sheep, those sheep destined to be sacrificed. Now he mentions that merely as a possibility and there's nothing in Luke's gospel that would indicate that these were something more or different than ordinary shepherds. But Edersheim mentions this as a possibility. All right. What's his source? Where does he get this information? Well, he turns to the Mishnah and says, this is where we find this as a possibility. Now, this is a sidebar. We need to ask and answer the question, what is the Mishnah? Because that's not something that we talk about with regularity. I'm going to set aside our exploration of our text here in Luke 2 for just a minute to elaborate on this sidebar. The Mishnah is a Jewish document from circa AD 200. It's a written record of Jewish oral tradition and rabbinic commentary on Jewish law and life. Now, when those of us living here in the 21st century hear the phrase oral tradition, we get nervous because we think of the oft times humorous, unreliable telephone game. You're sitting in a circle and the leader turns to the person on his right, maybe his left, and he says a simple sentence. Now, it probably might be, it might even be a short story, but he tells the person next to him where no one else can hear, and then that person turns to the person on the other side of them and repeats it. And of course, as you go around the circle, the story or the statement is completely off base. And we think, well, this is what oral tradition is like. It's completely unreliable. So when we're talking about the Mishnah, 200 years removed from the time of Jesus, we're thinking there's no way that this could be reliable. Well, let's tap the brakes here for just a moment. And let me give you a sidebar, a sub-sidebar, if you will, on the Mishnah. Let's talk very briefly about oral traditions. Here's where we are in the scope of things. We want to explore the sign given by the angel to the shepherds. Look for this. And we're looking for details about this sign. And we come up with these stories. Some of it has started from Alfred Edersheim himself, who warned us against embellished traditions and accounts of things. He looked at the Mishnah. The Mishnah is a written record of world tradition. What does that look like? A very helpful and easily readable book titled Why I Trust the Bible by professor and translator Bill Muntz. He explains in that volume the three different kinds of oral tradition. Let me just say them and I'll make a brief comment about them and we'll be done with this sub sidebar. He says there's a formal controlled tradition. I'll explain that in a minute. There is a informal uncontrolled tradition. That's the opposite of the first. And then there's a third, the informal controlled tradition. Let me explain that. The formal, controlled tradition describes rabbinic Judaism. Here, the stories, the teachings, the doctrines are retold only by those in positions of authority, the rabbis. They ensure themselves the accuracy and the reliability, the continuity of the stories, the teaching, the doctrine. The second kind of oral tradition, just the opposite, the informal, uncontrolled tradition, describes the kind of culture where anyone can retell the story, anyone can tell the doctors, and there's nobody in a position of authority to say, wait a minute, that's not quite accurate, or no, that person has said it exactly right. There's nobody like that. The third kind of tradition, the informal controlled tradition, describes the kind of culture where anyone is allowed to retell the stories, but it's those in authority that stand up and they give thumbs up or thumbs down as to the accuracy of the retelling. Now when we're talking about the Mishnah, I'm done with that sub-sidebar, by the way. When we're talking about the Mishnah, we're talking about a written record from a formal, controlled oral tradition culture. So we can stand with some certainty on the fact that what the Mishnah has recorded is reliable. We have to be careful here, though. Even in a formal, controlled tradition, what has been accurately, carefully, faithfully recorded from one generation to another, orally, and even in that process of writing it down, that does not necessarily mean that it is true. It simply means that it has been faithfully recorded as it has been passed down. Well, let's consider what's in the Mishnah. In Edersheim's work, he, in the footnotes, he cites two particular passages in the Mishnah. I checked both of them out, and what it tells us is that Temple-sacrificed animals are only to be raised in the wilderness near Jerusalem. That's what we learned. That's it. That's all we learned. Temple-sacrificed animals are only to be raised in the wilderness near Jerusalem. Now, Bethlehem is in the wilderness, and it is within just a few miles of Jerusalem. It fits. Is it a legitimate conclusion to thereby state that these shepherds, to whom the angels appeared, are these shepherds temple shepherds? Well, Edersheim is clear. It's a possibility. Do we know it to be certain? No. Well, what about those other stories that have spun off from this idea of the temple shepherds being summoned to look at the Christ child? Did they Did they wrap the lambs that would be temple sacrifices in swaddling cloths and lay them in mangers? Maybe. We don't know. Well, did they use the soiled, bloodied garments of the high priest to wrap the lamps and lay them in a manger? We don't know. Doubtful, remotely possible. Was Jesus wrapped in such cloths? Well, the story may be wonderfully rich and picturesque, but it's very doubtful. We have no information to suggest that that's true. It appears to be, these stories, appear to be fanciful inventions of furtive minds. Ah, but all is not lost. The internet may let us down, but we still have the truth of scripture. Look with me again at Luke chapter two. beginning of verse 8, in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, do not be afraid for behold I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. A sign signifies, signifies something, it points somewhere. The sign itself is not what is most important, but what it points to. What it points to, what this sign points to in verse 12, is the one who has been born. The one who has been born is the Savior. This one who has been born is the Christ, or in Hebrew, the Mashiach, the Messiah. He is the Lord. And this is what they were to look for, baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Now, Christmas is not about the wrapping. It's not about the swaddled baby. It's not about a swaddled baby in a manger, NAS footnote, in a feeding trough. We miss the point here if we are focused on the cloths, the wrapping, or the place where Jesus was actually laid as an infant. This is what the shepherds were to look for. They were to look for one that was not as they'd expected. When they hear of this one being born who was in the line of David, They hear this one who is the Messiah of God. When they hear this one who is the Lord, they might be tempted to look for a child who was placed in a bejeweled crib in a royal palace. And the sign is something that is completely antithetical to what they might expect. They were to look for poverty, not privilege. Verse 16 of chapter two. So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as he lay in the manger. No mention of swaddling cloths. That's not the point. The manger is not the point. Those just point to one who came in abject humility. Was there the expectation that Jesus, the Messiah, came to die? Absolutely. Isaiah 53, just that particular chapter, demonstrates that. Now Jesus came in poverty and humility, the Savior, the Messiah, the Lord. This one came in a manner different than what anybody expected. Here's one takeaway from this encounter that the shepherds had. As Jesus came in poverty and humility, so must we who follow after the Christ come. We come to him in the manner likened unto how he came to us, in deep humility. As the teacher, so the student. I direct your attention to Matthew chapter 5, Jesus begins his sermon on the mount with this statement, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who recognize they have no standing before God. They have nothing to offer God. They have nothing to demonstrate any worthiness on their part to be in the presence of holy God. Blessed are those who know they are spiritually bankrupt. Theirs is the gift of the kingdom. Theirs is the gift of eternal life expressly and exclusively given by Messiah Jesus. The sign of the Christ coming, wrapped as a baby, wrapped as a baby lying in a feeding trough, he comes as one that we don't expect. And similarly, we come to Him in ways that we don't expect. Shouldn't we come with certitude and our good deeds to present to Him as if we have something to show, to demonstrate, to give to Almighty God? No. No, we come with a broken spirit. We come with empty hands. Christmas is not about the wrapping. Christmas is about God coming to man in humility. Christmas is about man coming to God in deep humility. Let's pray. Blessed God, we thank you for your goodness to us, your mercy and your kindness that you expressly give to us at Christmas. May your blessing be upon your people around the world as we celebrate your birth. Amen.