Well do please take your Bibles in hand and open with me to Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 2. We’ll begin reading in verse 7. If you are using one of the pew Bibles, that will be on page 857.
One of the key words in this passage is the word “glory.” You see it there in verse 9. “The glory of the Lord shone around.” You see it in the angels’ song there in verse 14, “Glory to God in the highest.” And you see it again in verse 20 in the response of the shepherds, “They were glorifying and praising God.” As we come to this familiar passage, my hope is that we will catch a glimpse of that glory and that our response will be one that makes us want to sing with the angels, “Glory to God in the highest.” There are at least three ways that we see the glory of God’s plan of salvation in this passage and those will be our points today, those three things. First, we’ll see heavenly humility. Second, we’ll see the host of harmony. And third, we’ll see the humble herdsmen. Heavenly humility, host of harmony, and the humble herdsmen. So we are going to read again from Luke chapter 2, beginning in verse 7. Before we read, however, let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
Heavenly Father, how grateful we are for Your Word. We ask that You would open our eyes and help us to see marvelous things, Lord, that You would open our eyes even as we look at a familiar passage and that You would help us to understand more of Your glory. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray, amen.
Luke chapter 2, beginning in verse 7. Hear now the Word of God:
“And she,” Mary, “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths 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, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!’
When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.’ And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”
Amen. May God add His blessing to this, the reading and the hearing of His holy, inerrant, and infallible Word. Amen.
Well sometimes things just don’t fit. There was a moment when we were in Thailand as Josh reported about that was like that. We had flown in late at night; it was close to midnight when our flight arrived. They are 13 hours ahead of us in Thailand so we might have been a little groggy the next morning as we made it to a coffee shop with Trey Adams. It was like most other coffee shops. There were skillful baristas that take their job very seriously. There was a soundtrack of soft piano music in the background, and there were comfortable chairs and tables that you are encouraged to stick around and linger there. And we sat there with Trey getting an overview of the country and the strengths and the struggles there of ministry. And we’re seeing this country for the first time by light of day, a country whose missionaries often ask us not to include their full names for safety, and then the three of us all perked up and realized that what we were hearing in the background was “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” That was the song that was playing in the coffee shop. It turns out the barista was a member of Trey’s church, but here in a country that is about 0.75% evangelical, we’re hearing hymns at a coffee shop and it just didn’t seem to fit.
There was another such situation that’s less spiritual and profound. As I was walking down the street, there was a 20-something that came up to me with real concern in his eyes and he pulled up his sleeve and put his arm next to mine and said, “Why are you so white?” I said, “Well, guilty as charged!” Apparently I didn’t quite fit either!
And in this passage there are a series of things that don’t just seem to fit together. We’ll see that in our first point now – heavenly humility. Look down again at verse 7 if you would. “And Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn.” We see in this little baby both God and man. The son of Mary and the only begotten Son of God. He entered into this world into time and space, yet He was begotten by the Father before all worlds. He was a human baby whose substance, whose body was formed in Mary’s womb but who was also of one substance or one essence with God the Father. He had a human nature that was made while being the one through whom all things were made. He had a divine nature and a human nature united. So not God that just appeared to be a man, not a man who God later exalted and gave Him some type of special divine status, not an enhanced super human, not some mixture of the two natures but divinity united inseparably with humanity. This is the second person of the Trinity born as a baby.
And where do we find this high King of heaven? Well, He’s lying in an animal’s feeding trough. What humility for the one who has dwelt forever in heaven. And this humility is really shocking even by earthly standards to find Him there. That’s why the angel has to tell the shepherds what the sign is – that the baby is in a manger – because they wouldn’t have believed it otherwise. If they had wandered through Bethlehem and stopped by all the newborn babies, the last one they would have expected to be the one, true and living God would have been the one in the manger in swaddling cloths. They would not have believed it if the angels had not told them. That was the one that the angels sang about.
And in Isaiah 66, the Lord says, “Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool.” And we understand that heaven and thrones are places of exaltation, of greatness, but what about the footstool? What about the footstool? It’s dirty. It’s smelly. It’s a place of disgrace. It’s unpleasant. And Psalm 110 says, “The Lord says to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’” So this is not a place of honor but of humility. So why, why would Jesus, why would Jesus give up the glory of heaven for the humility of a manger? Why did He take on flesh and subject Himself to weakness and to suffering? Why leave His throne room to occupy the footstool? Well, the Nicene Creed tells us very simply and beautifully, “for us men and for our salvation, He came down from heaven.” He did that for you and for me. “Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor, all for love’s sake becamest poor. Thrones for a manger didst surrender, sapphire paved courts for stable floor. Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor, all for love’s sake becamest poor.” What I want you to see here as we peek into this scene by the manger in Bethlehem is that Christ’s entire life was filled with humility and with a self-sacrificial gift from God for us and for our salvation.
We typically think of the cross and the resurrection as the week when our salvation was won, and rightly so. That’s the most obvious expression of Christ’s self-sacrificial love for us. The penalty we deserve, the very wrath of God was satisfied as it was poured out on the man that this baby in Bethlehem would become. It is the very reason that Jesus was born, but it was not just Calvary that matters when it comes to Jesus’ ministry and our salvation. At the cross, indeed the penalty for sin was paid, but Christ gives us much more than a not-guilty verdict. He gives us His merit. He gives us His righteousness that was earned by His entire life of perfect obedience. We just read about it in the children’s catechism, but when we think of justification, we often use a shorthand definition to remember what it means. We say it’s “just as if I never sinned.” And that is true enough, but if all we have gained in justification is a lack of sin, then we are still missing something. We still have no righteousness of our own. And so the good news of the Gospel is not just that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, but that He lived a life of perfect obedience.
That’s why the Westminster Shorter Catechism tells us that “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins” – that’s the not-guilty verdict, right? “He pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous in His sight.” How does He do that? How does He do that? “Only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.” So not just Passion Week, but Jesus’ entire life was lived for us. Jesus’ entire life was lived for us and for our salvation. So don’t think of Christmas as a sweet moment at the beginning of Jesus’ life or as the warmup for the real work of accomplishing salvation at Calvary. Right here, right here in Luke 2 at the beginning of this gospel, in what we think of as one of the sweetest moments in the gospels as the very Son of God lies in the manger, His great work of redemption is already underway.
So we’ve seen heavenly humility, now let’s turn our attention to the host of harmony. Look down with me at verse 9. “And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were filled with great fear.” While Christ’s arrival was one of overwhelming humility, maybe underwhelming humility is the right way to say that, I don’t know, it was filled with lots of humility. It wasn’t without some fanfare, so let’s look at the message that the angel delivers. He says in verse 10, “I bring you good news.” Literally he’s saying to the shepherds, “I’m evangelizing you. I bring you good news, good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” “For all the people” – without that line, Calvin says, we could mistake this message for being for the shepherds alone, but the angel adds that line “for all the people” and we know it’s not just for them. This good news is indeed for all the people. And that phrase was actually something of a technical term used to refer to all the people of Israel, all of God’s people, and that’s likely how the shepherds would have understood that. That’s likely how they would have understood that phrase. But what we see in Jesus’ ministry and throughout the New Testament is a broadening of the people of God to include all people everywhere who turn to Him. This good news is for everyone. This good news is for you.
So what is the news? Look at verse 11. “Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” So the angel reports that a Savior has been born. Now even if the shepherds were a pretty rough bunch, they still lived in Israel and would have had at least some minimal knowledge about Israel’s history and Israel’s hope. And although the people of God had now been waiting for hundreds of years, they were still expecting a Savior. Maybe a Savior like one of the judges who would throw off their Roman oppressors and usher in a new golden age. But this was a unique Savior. The angel goes on to say, “He is Christ. He is the Anointed One. He is the Messiah.” And you can look back into chapter 1 of this book at Mary’s song and see that a pious, young Jewish teenager understood that the baby she was expecting was actually the baby that all of Israel was expecting. This was the Messiah that Israel was expecting. So while the shepherds were undoubtedly shocked by this visit from an angel, it would have been news that was likely familiar to them in some way or another. So we’ve got a baby who is a Savior, who is Christ, or the Messiah.
So far, so good, but now here comes the kicker. He’s not just a Savior, He’s not just the Christ; He is also the Lord, Yahweh. The Lord Himself was the Messiah. The Lord Himself was born in Bethlehem. And this is the first time in Scripture that we see “Christ” and “Lord” used together like this. And this was mind blowing, mind bending news. And you can just look at the rest of Jesus’ life to understand that. How was He misunderstood by the learned and the pious and the Pharisees and all those that accused Jesus of blasphemy? They couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that the Messiah was a man and God. And the angel goes on to explain how they’ll recognize Yahweh the Lord. It’s because He’s wrapped in swaddling cloths and is lying in a manger. And then as if heaven can no longer contain its joy, the sky explodes with a multitude of angels singing their familiar song of praise to God, “Glory to God in the highest!” Now if the angels were singing at this news with joy, how much more should we sing for joy? This divine rescue mission that was now underway was to save people, not angels. The Son of God did not become an angel; He became man. He became one of us. He can relate to us in our weakness and our misery. He is one of us, and this has profound implications for us.
In this room next week we’ll have The Music of Christmas in the evening. Many of you, likely all of you have been to The Music of Christmas before or to some other concert with a full orchestra. And if you are anything like me, you can’t help but watch the best section of the orchestra, which is the percussion section, of course! Now if you really watch the timpani player, the one playing those big kettle drums, you’ll notice something interesting. The timpani player will hit the drum, and then when it’s time for that note to stop ringing, he muffles it with his hands. But if you watch extra carefully, you’ll notice that he never only muffles the one drum; he’s muffling all four, or however many he has there. He’s muffling all those. And the reason is that when the timpani are tuned precisely, whether to the same note or something in the harmonic sequence, hitting one note, hitting one of the drums causes the others also to ring. And so he has to muffle all of them. And that reaction is called sympathetic resonance.
Brothers and sisters, the second person of the Trinity becoming man means that every note that is struck in your life finds a sympathetic resonance in the heart of our Savior. His heart of sympathy, love and compassion is tuned precisely to you. He knows our joys. He knows our sorrows. When we are suffering from the miseries of life, that resonates in the heart of our Savior. When we deal with pain and with loss, that resonates in the heart of our Savior. When striving to live faithfully causes us to be misunderstood and misrepresented, that resonates in the heart of our Savior. That resonates in the heart of our Savior who doesn’t just tolerate us, but loves us to the point of becoming man, dying for us, and adopting us so that we might be called “beloved children of God.” Does that not make you want to sing, “Glory to God in the highest”?
But it’s not enough for us to stop there. We need to hear the entirety of the angels’ song. Look back down at verse 14. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among those with whom He is pleased.” These angels sing about peace on earth. And how ironic is it that singing this hymn of peace is the heavenly host? And many of you will know that the word “host” is a synonym for “army.” So this hymn of peace is being sung by a host of harmony, an army of peace. There is power and authority in this song. This isn’t like the coffee shop version of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” This is like when this room is full of the MidSouth men and they are singing at the top of their lungs, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” times 1,000. This isn’t a wish for there to be peace; this is a proclamation of peace. This was a peace that was different from what Roman emperors promised. Not nearly peace as in the absence of war, as much as we long for that, but much more than that. This is a peace that our hearts all long for. We still sense that there’s something wrong even when we do our best to suppress that knowledge. We long for peace. We know things aren’t right. We do things in secret and try to convince ourselves that it’s fine, that nobody’s fought, everything’s okay, yet we still feel guilt and shame. And we want to rid ourselves of that feeling, but we can’t ever seem to convince ourselves enough or completely or to do enough good things to balance out those bad things that we’ve done.
And even those who are not Christians recognize this in their own lives. There was a famous Stoic philosopher named Epictetus. He was actually a contemporary of Luke and he observed that, “While the emperor may give peace from war on land and sea, he is unable to give peace from passion, grief and envy. He cannot give peace of heart for which man yearns more than even for outward peace.” This peace of heart and most importantly peace with God is what these angels are singing about. But again, look carefully. The angel has said that this good news is for all the people and the good news is that a Savior is born who brings this unbelievable peace.
But who is this peace for? Look down again at verse 14. “The ones with whom He is pleased.” So even in this joyful hymn of praise there is a solemn warning for us this evening. This peace is not for everyone. And this of course begs the question, “What can I do to be one with whom God is pleased?” And the answer, “Nothing.” There is nothing that we can do. All the way back to our first parents, back to Adam and Eve, no mere man has ever been able to live a life that is pleasing to God. The only way to be one with whom God is pleased is to hear the good news of the angel that is for all people – “A Savior is born who is Christ the Lord.” A reconciling Savior through whom we can have peace with God. You can’t earn God’s favor. You need to receive and rest on the finished work of this Savior and take hold of Him and His promises by faith. It’s the only way. He’s done it all, and that’s why we sing, “Glory to God in the highest.”
So we have seen heavenly humility and the host of harmony. Lastly, let’s turn our attention to the humble herdsmen. Look down with me at verse 8. “And in the same regions, there were shepherds.” Now I’m often struck by phrases in the Bible that are so nonchalant in the way that they talk about pretty remarkable things. One other author noted one such phrase in Genesis 1, day four of creation. This is the day God is creating the lights in the sky. In verse 16 of Genesis 1 says, “And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars.” Really? “And the stars”? The Milky Way alone has 100 billion stars in it, and now multiply that by the universe’s 2 trillion or so galaxies and the Bible describes the creative act required to bring all of that into existence in three words – “and the stars.” Two hundred billion trillion stars – I don’t even know if that’s a number! But they’re barely a footnote in this verse.
Well the phrase, “and there were shepherds” is similarly perplexing. And because of the way that the New Testament talks about shepherds and shepherding in such positive terms, it’s easy to lose sight of how strange it was to make mention of these shepherds here. Shepherds were an unloved and undesirable class of people. They spent lengths of time in the wilderness. They were out in the fields doing who knows what. They were away from other people, and many thought that they also robbed people who were traveling by night. The reputation of the shepherd was so poor that they were disqualified from being legal witnesses. There was a 3rd century rabbi commenting on Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd,” and he says, “There is no more despised occupation in the world than that of shepherds.” So in Jesus’ day, they would have been competing for that top spot of most despised occupations along with gamblers and tax collectors. Tax collectors we can relate to, right, but shepherds we don’t always relate to! But if the earth is a footstool, then the shepherds are like the dirt caked onto the bottom that never seems to get washed off.
So why on earth would shepherds be including in this royal birth narrative? Well when the angels proclaim that this Christ is for all people, they really mean it. It isn’t just the upper crust of society. It iesn’t just the nice folks or the ones who have the good jobs or the ones who seem to have their act together or who live in the nice neighborhoods. This is good news for all people. And did you see how the shepherds received this news? Look down at verse 15. “The shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.’ And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.” So they heard, they believed, then they went with haste, and they told others about it. What a model for us. They went from hearing the Gospel to becoming evangelists and missionaries in a matter of hours.
This ought to remind us that sharing our faith is not something that is saved only for the gifted Christians. Have you encountered this glorious Savior? Well how can we not share about Him with others? And as has been said multiple times today, this is perhaps the easiest time, the easiest week of the entire year to do that. I saw some statistics this past week on why people go to church, why they went to church maybe that first time and have continued. Two percent of the said they went because of an advertisement. Six percent said “organized visitation,” like a door-to-door visit. Another 6% were invited by the pastor. And 86% were invited by a friend. Eighty-six percent were invited by a friend! Your invitation is what is most likely to bring people to church. So maybe think even now about one person that you can commit to invite to church and pray for this season. As of this morning, there were still some notecards, some beautiful notecards out on the information desk in the Welcome Center that have our schedule for this week on the back. Take a handful of them. We don’t want there to be any left because we can’t use them again next year. We would love for you to write a note and invite a family member or a friend to come to one of our Christmas events, whether it’s Music of Christmas or next week, the morning service, or our Christmas Eve service following that. Your influence is greater than that of the pastors and certainly of our Facebook page as well. It’s not advertisements and pastoral invitations; it’s your invitations that’s most likely to bring people to church.
And let’s think again about where these shepherds were. They are somewhere outside of town in the region of Bethlehem, and so they are likely in some of the very same fields that David spent nights in as he watched over his own flocks. And I’m sorry, I know in the evening service you are accustomed to having beautiful maps accompany the sermon printed in the bulletin, but you’ll have to imagine this – Bethlehem is about 6 miles from the temple in Jerusalem, about 6 miles from the temple. Madison, from here, is double that. So it’s close. It’s 6 miles. There are some athletes in this room that run 6 miles before most of us are up in the morning! It’s not that far. So they’re 6 miles from the temple and they are in the region of Bethlehem. So they’re not right down. It’s probably that they are even closer to Jerusalem. They’re probably between Bethlehem and Jerusalem there.
And so it’s more than likely that the job of these shepherds was to raise these sheep and to sell them to Israelites who were on their way to the temple to offer them as sacrifices. Surely they didn’t fully understand that this newborn baby in Bethlehem would be the sacrifice that all of their sheep had ever pointed to. They could not have known that this baby would be called the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. And what would they have done? What would they have done if they had known that this baby had come to die as the once for all sacrifice that would make their family business obsolete? The point is, following Jesus is not always painless. There is a cost to discipleship. In thirty years, these shepherds may have had to decide that as followers of this Savior who is Christ the Lord, that they would no longer sell their sheep to people who were going to offer them as sacrifices, to people who were going to offer in what was then false worship because the Messiah had come.
And there’s a cost to our discipleship as well, but what we receive is surely greater. Whatever titles and identities it is that we hold dear are not actually promised to us in the Gospel. There will come a day when you can no longer fulfill the duties of that role, of that identity that you cherish so much. There will be a day when, for one reason or another you will no longer be able to do what is required of the star athlete, or of the family breadwinner, or of the tireless and productive employee, or a practicing doctor or lawyer, or the straight-A student, or the mother than anticipates and provides for every need of the family, or the socialite that seems to have everything together and be all the places that you want to be seen, or the deacon or the elder that serves faithfully in their office. Every single role that you have ever loved will fade away and be lost. But there will never come a day when you can no longer be a Christian. There is nothing more glorious in all the world than to be a Christian. All that it requires is to trust in this humble yet glorious Savior who is ever faithful. Glory to God in the highest.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we bow before You and are in awe of this baby in Bethlehem. Lord, we ask that You would help us to respond to what we have heard from Your Word, that You would help us to respond, that You would help us to sense the urgency of responding, both to tell our friends of this news, and if anyone in this room has yet to respond, for them to respond themselves and acknowledge that this baby is the Savior who is Christ the Lord. We ask that You would bless the remainder of our evening and help us to sing loudly in response. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray, amen.