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Luke 2:8-14
Copyright December 25, 2022 by Rev. Bruce Goettsche
There is something fitting and appropriate about Christmas being on a Sunday.
Of course, churches used to worship on Christmas Day regardless of the day of the week it fell on.
Over the years, that faded because people were busy and, frankly, even Pastors were eager to travel to their own families.
However, there is no question that the joy of Christmas is deeper when we stop to worship together and remember why we are celebrating.
This morning I take you one more time to the hillside and the Shepherds.
This time I want to focus on the words of the angels in Luke 2:8-14.
8 That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep.
9 Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them.
They were terrified, 10 but the angel reassured them.
“Don’t be afraid!” he said.
“I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.
11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! 12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in highest heaven,
and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.
Specifically let’s reflect on the words, “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.”
Good News
The angel said the announcement of the birth of Christ was “good news.”
The angel meant more than the good news of a dad or doctor coming out of the delivery room to announce, “It’s a boy!”
That is always great news.
This news is great for much deeper reasons.
First, the birth of Jesus is good news because it shows God has not forgotten us.
The birth of Jesus was the fulfillment of a promise God made countless times since the time of creation.
We have all had times when we wondered if anyone cared about our lives.
It may have been in a time of crisis or perhaps in a time of loneliness.
One of the loneliest times of the year is Christmas.
While everyone else is off celebrating with their families, you may be all alone.
It’s possible this is the first Christmas without a spouse, sibling, or parent.
Maybe this is the first Christmas the kids won’t make it back home.
Maybe you can’t make it home for Christmas or you are for some reason estranged from your family.
Maybe this is your first Christmas as a divorced person.
In all these situations, it is easy to feel you are forgotten.
No one seems to notice or care.
But this is what makes Christmas special.
The whole point of His coming was to let us know that He does care.
God cares about you whether you feel like He does or not.
He cares about you whether you believe it or not.
The gospel is the good news that God does not give up on us; He has not abandoned us; He does not look past us.
He sees us.
The birth of Jesus was also good news because it means a remedy for our sinful alienation from God is available.
The life of an Old Testament Jew must have involved seemingly one sacrifice after another.
They were always in need of making atonement for their sin.
I wonder how long men had to stand in line at the temple to offer a sacrifice for sin.
How long was it after they left the line that they felt they needed to get back into line to “atone” for new sin?
Don’t you feel this way at times?
You start the day by taking time to confess all your known sins.
But, before the day is over, you have to repent from the bucket full of sin you committed the remainder of the day.
And if you are like me, some of those sins are the very things I confessed and desired to turn from earlier in the day.
The good news of the gospel is this: we no longer have to live our lives plagued with guilt.
Jesus came to give His life as a payment for sin once and for all.
On the cross Jesus cried, “It is Finished!”
The price for our sin was paid.
Guilt no longer need haunt us.
We no longer need to fear that an unconfessed sin was going to consign us to Hell.
In 1 Peter 3.18 we read, “Christ suffered for our sins once for all time.
He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God.”
I like this better in NIV: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.”
The righteous (Jesus) for the unrighteous (us).
He died as a payment for our sin.
Imagine if someone came into your bank and paid off your mortgage!
It would be a relief and a great blessing.
That debt is NOTHING compared to the sin debt we owe before the Lord.
Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, our sin (yes every bit of it) is forgiven.
Guilt is removed.
Forgiveness is granted.
We are embraced by love.
This is what the coming of Christ meant.
This is the Good News of the Gospel in every day of our lives.
Third, the message of Christmas is the good news that futility of life is banished; meaning and purpose is infused into our lives.
The message of the secular world can be summarized with the phrase: “you live, you die, that’s it.”
There is no eternal dimension to our lives, no lasting purpose.
So, the goal in living is to enjoy whatever you can for as long as possible before you die.
Is it any wonder people feel life is meaningless . . .
because in this view, nothing has any lasting meaning.
There is no incentive for morality.
No reason to serve others.
There isn’t any reason to care about anyone’s life but your own (leading to the rampant violence and the deep disregard for the life of others that we are seeing today).
So, we use people, we live wild, and we die alone as if jumping off a cliff into a deep nothingness.
Here is the thing, if you misdiagnose the problem, you will arrive at the wrong solution.
This is what our society does and is doing.
The problem in our life is our alienation from God! What we need is not more stuff, we need the new life and orientation that Christ gives.
We don’t need to redefine morality, we need to live by the standards God has set.
Jesus said, “I have come so you might have life and have it more abundantly.”
(John 10:10).
Through Christ our frantic and constant activity and our crazy mood swings give way to contentment and joy.
Christmas is good news because it says life DOES matter.
We are living now to live again.
There is a purpose for/in our lives.
There is a God whom we serve, and a Savior who wishes to make us His own.
The Lord has gone to great lengths to give us a reason for living.
He sent His Son to show us that this life is not all there is.
Great Joy
The angels brought good news that would bring great joy.
What is the joy of Christmas?
If you asked a child (and many adults) they would have no trouble with this one . . . the joy of Christmas is the presents they get from Santa and others!
This is not the joy the angels were talking about.
Joy is a word used throughout the Bible.
When the Bible uses the word joy the word is closely related to gladness and happiness, however, joy is more a state of being than an emotion; it is a result of choice.
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