This morning if you will turn with me in your Bibles to the gospel of Luke and the second chapter for our first scripture reading beginning in the first verse. I don’t think I can ever get tired of reading this or hearing this, so it may seem like we’ve just heard this like 48 hours ago or something.
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town.
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary his betrothed, who was with child.
And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth, and she 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 flocks 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 clothes 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 well 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 the 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.
From the gospel of Luke, we turn to Paul’s letter to Titus, chapter 2, beginning at the 11th verse. Paul writes, ‘For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.’
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray. Lord, you have given us your story, and it is a story we love to tell. It is a story we love to hear. We ask that you use your story to transform us, to change our hearts, to fill us, to give us hope, to give us comfort, and to grow and expand our faith and trust in you always and forevermore. Amen.
So Merry Christmas! Obviously, I like saying that because I believe it; it’s a good thing. But also let’s add ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo!’ Let us give glory to God in the highest, for that is why we are gathered here together today and why we gather every Lord’s Day, every Sunday.
But God does not need us to give him glory, for his glory is effulgent, coming out from within himself, radiating out into the whole earth and filling all of his good creation with the splendor and magnificence of his presence. Although we may not be able to always see it with our eyes of flesh, we can see it with the eyes of faith.
And someday we will bask in his glory upon the day of Christ’s second advent and then forever onward. Amen.
But some two thousand years ago, on that first Christmas morning, the Lord God Almighty clothed himself and his glory in flesh like ours and was born in a most unglorified estate. However, in this humbleness, his glory was exponentially increased.
The miracle of the incarnation of Christ is such that we cannot really understand much beyond our need for it and then be completely amazed at the wonder of Jesus’s kenosis, the willingness he showed in emptying himself, taking on the form of a lowly servant, being like us so that we may become truly like him once more.
Jesus glorified our Father as a man, receiving his glory in return—the same glory he had from before the world was made. This glory was never lost or given up by him, even if it was set aside or hidden for a time from the eyes of men.
But here in our account of his birth, we see the glory of God and of Christ made manifest, clearly expressed in very unexpected ways.
Ways which run counter to the ordinary expectation of the world and of sinful men. Jesus bar Joseph was born the King of the Jews; he was born of the line and lineage of King David, the son of Jesse, from the tribe of Judah, which Jacob prophesied: ‘The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.’
And to whom the Lord promised David, ‘When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.’
Being born the descendant of kings from the royal tribe of a holy nation destined for greatness, what would we expect of the occasion? We would expect that he would be born in a palace, that he would sleep soundly in a golden bassinet wrapped up in the finest silks and furs, that he would grow up privileged, surrounded and satisfied by wealth, that his every wish and desire would become the command of the sycophants who surrounded him, that he would want for nothing but would instead be spoiled, pampered, and catered to all the days of his life.
That he would receive a king’s education, learning the law, the art of politics and influence from the finest tutors and philosophical experts which money could buy; those would all be the expected product and expression of human glory. Those are what we would expect from human wisdom, and that does kind of describe more of what David’s natural son and successor Solomon likely enjoyed.
But the Lord had other plans for his son Jesus. Instead of being born inside of a palace surrounded by courtiers with midwives scurrying around, Jesus was born somewhere outside of an ordinary dwelling place because there was not enough space for them inside.
Instead of a beautiful crib overlaid with gold and encrusted with precious stones, baby Jesus rested comfortably in a feeding trough made for livestock.
Now, our English translation of this passage is very much culturally biased and influenced by some two thousand years of medieval European history, a bias which has the unfortunate and likely unintentional effect of sanitizing, cleaning up, or improving the imagery of the nativity scene. While we love our differently styled nativity scenes, much like the ones we have on our communion table here, they are not very historically accurate, even if the scene is romantic.
We like to emphasize because there was no room for them in the inn, but it’s highly unlikely that our mental image of a quiet and picturesque inn, tavern, public house, or hostel was anything at all like what Luke intends us to think of.
What we translate here as ‘inn’ is the Greek word ‘cataluma,’ a word ordinarily used referencing a guest room and not a place of public accommodation for weary travelers. That word is the Greek word ‘pandoxian,’ a word which Luke uses elsewhere to describe where the Good Samaritan leaves the man he rescued.
‘Cataluma’ is used by both Luke and Mark to describe the room where Jesus and his disciples celebrated his last Passover, a semi-private space used for housing and entertaining one’s guests, visitors, and family.
That creates a very different mental picture. So there was likely no stern innkeeper rejecting and refusing Joseph and Mary accommodations, but who then also half-heartedly or mercifully shows them pity, allowing them to stay in the barn with the beasts of burden belonging to all the other hotel guests.
Instead, more likely, when traveling to Joseph’s ancestral home, there was surely lots of other family gathered together for the same reason, and so likely the homestead was just overflowing with people.
With space being a premium, Mary and Joseph either settled outdoors or in the space where the animals are usually kept so as not to disturb the remainder of the household, especially during the time before giving birth.
Those of us with large families and many grandchildren or great-grandchildren, or even those of us who have been grands or greats ourselves, we can imagine what the chaos in that home just may have been like during this family gathering.
But certainly, there was no pleasant wooden stable with a nice collection of livestock and clean hay. At best, they may have taken shelter in a rough stone cave, with the manger being a depression cut into the floor or perhaps a clay basin.
Instead of having a special space made or set aside and having extra care and attention, as we would believe that every pregnant mother and child should receive today, Jesus was likely born out in the most wondrous palace imaginable, out underneath the stars, beneath the gaze of the eyes of heaven, firmly held, being watched over by God the Father.
Jesus was born in the midst of God’s great and good creation, in a palace not crafted by human hands but by the sovereign will of the Father. Whether he was born in a field or in a stable surrounded by animals, the birth of Jesus echoes the creation of the first Adam, who is also called God’s son and who himself once rested among the beasts of the field.
We would expect the birth of the long-awaited and prophesied King of the Jews to be heralded out in every hall, great and small. Glasses would be raised in excited toasts; cries of ‘Mazeltov!’ in good health and congratulations would be shouted across the land.
Choirs would sing in joy; messengers would be sent forth, bringing word of his birth and spreading it quickly from town to town and home to home all across Judea.
But that was not the Lord’s plan; that was not how the birth of the Messiah was announced.
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.
Herod the Great, the king of Judea, did not walk out onto his patio or into the temple courts and give a great or grand speech announcing the birth of the Christ child. More likely, Joseph announced Jesus’s birth with great joy to all of his gathered kinfolk and disparate relations, but there in Bethlehem, no one beyond their immediate family was likely overly concerned over the birth of one who appeared to be just another Jewish boy.
Yet what about the shepherds? What about the shepherds? Remember that the job of a shepherd in the ancient world was a very important one, especially in ancient Israel. Sheep and other livestock were necessary to their entire way of life, as well as the survival of the community. They were a source of food, meat, milk and cheese, cloth made from their wool, and for use as acceptable sacrifices to the Lord.
Shepherds may well have been an ancient equivalent to our modern-day blue-collar workers, but they were certainly not the scum of the earth as some people have made them out to be, suggesting that they were doing work which nobody else wanted to do or found to be acceptable.
They were not outcasts, social or otherwise. While they might not have been individually important people, they were still key and critical members of society. Abraham was a shepherd; they were a source and part of his great wealth.
Moses was a shepherd; he worked for his father-in-law for 40 years before the Lord called him to shepherd the sons of Israel out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and bring them to the promised land.
David was a shepherd before he became a warrior king, a poet king, and a prophet king. King David wrote the 23rd Psalm, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd,’ as a positive word about God. It was not derogatory; it was not denigrating nor an insult towards God but an affirmation of the highest praise.
King David knew that even while he was shepherding the nation Israel, leading God’s people in both war and peace, the Lord God was his shepherd, his guide, and the only leader that he should follow, and lead Israel to follow.
Later, Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd, the one who lays down his life to protect and preserve his sheep. The Apostle Peter also describes the elders of the church, the ministers of the gospel of Christ, as being shepherds of God’s people.
So it is very appropriate that those to whom God chose to announce the Messiah’s birth were simple shepherds working in the fields. They were those with whom God the Son had very much in common vocationally.
Much like a human king announcing the birth of his heir to all of their nobles, Jesus Christ, the heir and son of David, the shepherd king of Israel, Christ the Lord, is our shepherd. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd, messengers from an earthly king proclaiming the glory of a son’s birth were not sent out far and wide, but a messenger from God was sent to the shepherds.
An angel of the Lord proclaimed the Savior’s birth to the shepherds of Israel and not to its religious or political leaders. A whole heavenly host proclaimed to them, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is well pleased.’
Today we live in a world of very easy communication—of cell phones, the internet, Facebook, and Twitter. Important announcements are made, heard, and forgotten every moment of every day. Exciting news is being transmitted around the globe at nearly the speed of light.
People announce their marital engagements or the birth or sex of their child using pyrotechnics in funny little video clips. Good news travels very fast these days. Looking back to the 1970s, composers Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber asked some very contemporary, culturally minded questions about our preaching and proclaiming the gospel of Christ, specifically concerning the messaging around the birth and death of Jesus, asking of Jesus, ‘Why’d you choose such a backward time in such a strange land? If you’d come today, you could have reached a whole nation.’
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication. Their question assumes a very worldly and human sense of glory in the announcement and proclamation of the good news about Jesus. They assumed that Jesus’s life and his ministry would have had broader and greater effect and widespread appeal if his gospel had had the opportunity to be spread differently, suggesting that perhaps if he’d been born in some other when, at some other where, then he might not have even needed to die for the same reason—our sin.
But then they also provided a correct answer for the faithful foreknowledge of God and his divine decree, asking, ‘Did you mean to die like that? Was that a mistake, or did you know that your messy death would be a record breaker?’ Did God know this was the whole point, purpose, and eternal plan of our election and redemption?
The crucifixion of Christ is, as they say, the reason for the season, and we dare not forget it. That cross on Calvary was the reason why Jesus was born. Yes, the gospel message truly does break all human records.
The birth of Christ, the proclamation of the gospel across the whole world, has happened exactly and just as the Lord intends, with the very effect that he wills it to have. So that all who receive him and believe are accepted as children of God and join that heavenly chorus of ‘Glory to God in the highest!’
For we have received the mercy Jesus deserved when he received the justice for us. Jesus’s birth was proclaimed to the shepherds of Israel, having a religion of faith, living and working out in the temple of God’s good creation, instead of to those shepherds of Israel who possessed a religion of law way up there in the improved temple of King Herod the Edomite.
The glory of the Lord shone around them—these Bethlehem shepherds—instead of the glory of the Lord filling the temple as it had done in the days of Solomon or during the time of Moses and the tabernacle.
God’s glory is not like the glory of men, and we should not expect it to be. The glory of the Lord, the sign of his presence around them, which induced both fear and awe in those who beheld it, is the special gift to God’s chosen people as a sign of spiritual confirmation and affirmation.
It is how they and all the world knew that they had found favor in the Lord’s sight and that they were those with whom he is well pleased.
We are reminded, like the shepherds, that the only God of heaven and earth, the only omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Lord of all, is not, will not, and cannot be confined or contained within any box or human construction in edifice, no matter how splendid and glorious it might be.
The whole earth is, and will be, filled with his glory forever and ever. Amen.
Experiencing the presence of God, seeing his glory and the wonder of his power, leads us always to doxology—praise him. The announcement of the long-hoped-for Messiah’s birth was the proclamation of the greatest miracle that the Lord had done yet in Israel: the Savior was born; the reign of Christ was beginning; the kingdom of heaven had drawn near to us; and the redemption of God’s chosen people was at hand.
So how did the shepherds respond upon hearing this good news about Jesus? Well, first, with reverent fear and trembling and awe and worship. Then they acted upon this news in faith; they went to see—to go see just what the Lord had done, to see the truth which the angels had proclaimed to them.
Now, regardless of how educated or intelligent or devout these shepherds may or may not have been, beyond the spectacular magnificence of the heavenly host appearing suddenly in their midst and the wonder of the glory of the Lord surrounding them, just in case there remained any doubt in their hearts concerning the divine message, the angel gave them a sign so that they would know that what they were told was true and thus have their faith confirmed.
‘And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.’
The shepherds were so moved by what they had seen, so intrigued by the angel’s words, that they just had to go and see. So they left their sheep out in the field, trusting that they would remain safe, apparently unsupervised.
They went into town in the dark of night to go find a newborn baby king resting in a most unlikely place: a feeding trough. And they did. They found Mary and Joseph, with the baby Jesus lying in a manger, just as the angels had said.
The Savior announced with such glory and fanfare was born and rested in the most humble way imaginable. If the shepherds had not believed beforehand because of their angelic encounter, then there could have been no doubt in their hearts and minds after finding this unique babe in such an unusual circumstance.
Justice has been prophesied to them; God does not deal in coincidences; it is all according to his plan. They found him not with Mary nursing, not with Joseph holding and comforting a crying child, but with a baby resting in a feeding trough where the world would say he ought not to be.
Discovering Jesus like this was a confirmation for the shepherd’s faith. The explanation of the angelic announcement to the shepherds was a confirmation of Mary’s faith, submission, and obedience as Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.
Then the shepherds left in faithful anticipation and with hope, glorifying God for all that he had done and would do. Christ Jesus the Savior was born.
So how shall we respond to the birth of Christ, even now, today? How do we respond to his life and death? How do we respond to his resurrection? With joy, with hope, in faith and possessing his peace, now that the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.
How shall we respond and live? The Apostle Paul wrote to Titus, an elder whom he had raised up and left to shepherd a church community in Crete, that through the moral teachings of the law of Moses, the example and earthly ministry of Jesus, and our progressive sanctification by the Holy Spirit, Christians are being trained to live in a godly manner, rejecting the ways of the world.
We are to be self-controlled, reasonable, and above reproach in all of our interactions with others while we await the second advent of Christ Jesus.
We have been redeemed from our past lawlessness, our sins and sinfulness, our unrighteousness, our faithlessness, and disbelief, and are being purified as Christ’s treasured possessions.
As Jesus is God’s Christmas gift to us, the church is God’s Christmas gift to the Son, and we are to be zealous for good works. Because this great salvation that he has given to us, joyfully living for Christ and for God’s glory instead of our own, is our faithful response to both Christ’s birth and his resurrection.
We live and work and play, sharing the good news of grace that he has given to us in all that we do. We have heard the message of Scripture; we have had our hearts transformed, regenerated by God’s Holy Spirit, and now we believe, keeping our confidence in Jesus Christ alone.
We stake our eternal future upon him, and so we praise the Lord for this awesome mercy that he has given to us.
And so we go out. Let us go everywhere and spend our new lives in Christ, glorifying and praising God, for we all have heard and seen, and as it has been told to us, let us live for Christ and for his glory until his second advent and through eternity beyond.
And he shall reign forever and ever. Gloria in excelsis Deo, forever and ever. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Amen.