Jesus' Acclaimed Birth

Luke 2:8-14

By D. Marion Clark

Introduction

So far we have address the birth of Jesus in terms of the problems the Christmas story raises. I am ready to move from that approach and examine the Scripture to learn the message of the Christmas story. For that we will learn from the angels and the shepherds.

Text

The Appearance 8-9

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

What did the shepherds see that terrified them so? I've watched "Touched by an Angel." Those angels are nice to be around. Even the Angel of Death is a pleasant fellow. From the little I have picked up on in the current angel craze of our day, one senses only feelings of peace and joy in the presence of an angel. Indeed, the job descriptions of angels is to fill us with as much peace and joy as possible, as well as protect us from harm.

Perhaps it was the surprise itself. The angel simply appears, no earthly sounds of footsteps to arouse attention. If you were out in a field, and I suddenly appeared in front of you, you might be spooked, especially if you were specifically keeping watch for intruders.

Maybe it was the angel's appearance. The angels on the TV shows look like us; maybe this angel was big as a giant with fiery hair or something like that. And maybe he was floating in the air with huge wings. Perhaps, but Luke does not bother to describe him. The angels who bring messages typically appear as ordinary human beings, and sometimes the person they are talking to does not catch on at first that he or she is talking with a supernatural being.

But that's pretty clear to these shepherds, considering the "special effects" that came with this angel: the glory of the Lord shone around them. What does that mean? Apparently a great light enveloped them. Paul used the same term to describe his Damascus Road experience. In Acts 26:13 he speaks of a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. Light represents the presence of God. That is not an unusual thought, and the movies always depict heavenly beings surrounded by light. Demi Moore watched Patrick Swayze ascend up to light. He wasn't like the bad guy who was pulled into a hole by dark angels.

Patrick and Demi liked the light. It made them feel peaceful. But not the shepherds. What is it about the angel and the light? It has to do with what and whom the angel and the light represent.

Consider two case studies of angel appearances. Gideon and Samson's parents were visited by an angel. At first, they regarded each angel who spoke to them as a man. But when they were made aware of being in the presence of angel, they also became terrified.

,22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, "Ah, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!" 23 But the LORD said to him, "Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die" (Judges 6:22-23).

20 As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground. 21 When the angel of the LORD did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was the angel of the LORD. 22 "We are doomed to die!" he said to his wife. "We have seen God!" (Judges 13:20-22).

What is this death fear? Neither angel delivered a message of judgment, indeed just the opposite. The clue is in each response. The persons fear dying, because they have looked upon an angel of God. To look upon an angel who stands in the presence of God was equivalent to seeing God. Remember Gabriel's comment to Zechariah after Zechariah voiced doubt about Gabriel's message? I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God (Luke 1:19). "Who are you, Zechariah, to question me, considering that I live in the presence of God?"

The biblical accounts of meeting angels certainly differ from the modern popular stories. Instead of peace, there is fear; instead of joy, there is anguish. Why would that be? God is love; isn't that characteristic the trait that angels would pass on?

It would seem that way, but actually, what is passed on is holiness. What unnerves these biblical characters is to come in contact with God's holiness. Isaiah expressed it best in his response to a heavenly vision of God and his angels: 5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty" (Isaiah 6:5). The problem is sin. Holiness and sin do not mix, and when sinful man comes in contact with holy God as represented by the holy angels, then it results in disaster for man, unless…unless God extends his grace.

I don't think it is necessary for the individual to be religious or theologically astute about holiness. It simply is the feeling that comes on when in the presence of true holiness. I like C. S. Lewis' comment in Perelandra when he comes in contact with an "eldil." "I felt sure that the creature was what we call 'good,' but I wasn't sure whether I liked 'goodness' so much as I had supposed." These shepherds certainly did not feel at ease with the goodness shining around them!

The Announcement 10-12

10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

The first thing the angel tells them is to calm down. Don't be afraid; they are not about to be consumed. No, he has come to bring good news, not news of doom. "Good news" translates the same Greek term that Mark uses to open his gospel: The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mark 1:1). "Gospel" and "good news" are synonyms; they mean the same thing. The angel is saying that he brings the gospel to the shepherds.

Note first two characteristics of this gospel. One, it is of great joy; it is mega-joy. The Greek adjective is "megas." This is not nod-your-head-politely news; it is shout-for-joy news! Furthermore, it is news for all the people. The gospel is not reserved for the intelligentsia who alone can understand complex philosophy. Nor is it reserved for the initiates of mystery religions who have gone through the prescribed rituals to get into the inner circle. Nor is it reserved for the spiritual who make long pilgrimages to holy teachers or perform rigorous spiritual exercises to reach a plane of enlightenment. It is not reserved for the leaders of the religious establishment, nor for the wealthy and the powerful? That's clear by bringing the message to the shepherds. No, this gospel that is of mega-joy is for people of all shapes and sizes.

So what is this wonderful news? A Savior has been born. Now, if an angel had appeared to us and told us that a savior had been born, our response would have been, "A savior for what?" The shepherds are Jews; they understand what the angel means, especially with the additional information. The town of David is, of course, Bethlehem. Why doesn't the angel say Bethlehem? Because the Savior the Jews were expecting would come not only from Bethlehem but out of the lineage of David; he was to be another David. For this Savior is no less than Messiah the Lord. "Christ" is the Greek translation for "Messiah."

This certainly is joyful news. The Messiah for whom the Jewish people had waited for centuries was today born. Now that is exciting! And note the personal touch. The Messiah is born to you. You can almost see the shepherds pointing at their chests and saying, "To us?" Yes! The Messiah belongs to them and to all of God's people. He is yours!

While the shepherds are trying to take this in, the angel goes on with instructions:
12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Okay. Let's see…he will be wrapped in cloths…aren't babies cute that way? And we will find him lying in a manger…a what? That certainly is different, for a savior. We wouldn't have thought of the Messiah being put in a feeding trough. But then we never would have expected that we would be the ones delivered the message.

The Acclamation 13-14

While the shepherds are considering the angel's extraordinary message, kazaam! 13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

Now, if I were frightened before, that would have finished me off! The term for "host" is literally an "army." Suddenly appearing before this small band of humble shepherds is a large army of angels bathed in brilliant light. Imagine hundreds, maybe thousands of angels all around you booming forth together praise to God. I would think their acclamation would drowned out any rock concert.

Glory to God in the highest! These are not humble folk mouthing a creed or meekly singing a doxology. These are ranks upon ranks of angels who stand in the presence of the glorious God of the universe, who have beheld his glory in all his splendor; these are the angels of God who declare forth his praise with all their being, whose minds do not wander about as they speak.

And then they give a blessing: on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests. This blessing is somewhat different from the one more commonly known through the KJV: on earth peace, good will toward men. This is not merely a matter of rearranging words. It is actually a matter of a single letter. Since the time of the KJV translation, other older Greek manuscripts have been found that have the letter, sigma, (which corresponds to our "s") at the end of the word for goodwill. That letter changes the way goodwill fits into the sentence. Thus instead of the angels saying peace on earth and goodwill to men, they are saying let there be peace on earth to men on whom God places his goodwill or favor. In other words, the angels are not giving a general blessing to mankind. This is not another version of "God bless us, everyone." Rather, it is a blessing of real peace to all for whom this child was born to save.

Lessons

What then can we learn from the angels? Consider these three lessons. First, we don't understand Christmas if we don't accept its historicity. The good news of the angels was not "God has come up with a good illustration of his love." As John says in 1 John 4:9,10, God showed his love by sending his Son. Or as Paul says in Galatians 4:4: when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman.

Just as a birthday party is about the birth of someone, so Christmas is about the birth of Christ the Savior. Every manger scene, from the one that sits on the mantelpiece to the play put on by the children to the live nativities in the church yard…every manger scene depicts the real story of Christmas. The truth lies in the manger. Everything else is dressing that may or may not contribute to the real meaning of Christmas.

Second, we don't understand Christmas if we don't understand God's holiness and our sin. It is not enough to believe God sent his Son. If we don't understand why, then we just don't get Christmas. Listen to what the Bible explains as the "why" of Christmas.

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10).

God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement (Romans 5:25).

Christmas exists because of a problem. The problem is that God is holy and man is sinful. And if God is to be holy he must bring judgment on sin; he must remove it, which means he must remove us. That's what the shepherds understood and all the other Jews visited by angels. You can't have what is holy come in contact with what is unholy — that is a formula for disaster. The very symbol for this problem was the Temple with its Holy of Holy Holies. No one could enter the Holy of Holies but the High Priest once a year to make atonement for the sins of Israel. And even then he must first offer a sacrifice for himself and enter burning incense which then filled the area with smoke so that he could not look clearly on the Ark of the Covenant, God's royal throne.

This problem of the incompatibility of holiness and sin is real. We are not separated with God because we aren't being spiritual enough, because we haven't gotten connected with the divine side of our beings. The New Age movement tells us that God is not mad; he's sad; sad that we live such frustrated lives. The Bible tells us that God is very mad with us, because he cannot tolerate sin. Even so, Christmas tells us that this angry God has done the most wondrous work beyond imagination. Listen:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:6-8).

Now that is love, a love that none of us can comprehend. What parent would send a child to die for wicked people who hate the parent? That is what God has done. What God is like this? A God so holy he cannot bear the smallest sin, and yet so loving that he would bear the most terrible pain to save his enemies reeking with sin? What God is like this? If you don't understand the problem and the awesome solution, you don't understand Christmas.

Finally, we don't understand Christmas if we don't understand the peace for men and women that Christmas is about. Everyone likes Christmas because it is about peace. That's why there are Christmas stories about people being reconciled to one another and even war stories of enemies who for a day act as friends. We are a world starving for peace, which always seems just out of our grasp. There is no one so close to us that we have not sometimes been at odds with, not even ourselves. None of us have escaped sometime feeling angry with ourselves and struggled to have inner peace.

But the Bible says that our real problem is that we do not have peace with God. This is not a matter of how much we feel at peace with God. There is a real barrier between God and man; our sins have made us enemies rebellious against God. If we want peace, then we must take the gift of the Christ who was born. But we must take it on God's terms. We must humble ourselves, not thinking we deserve it. Even more so, we must desire it above all else. Desire it more than having good health or breaking an addiction; desire it more than good family relationships or a good career. Desire it more than being thought well of and having things go your way. Desire it more than life itself. For as odd as it may seem, it is when the gift of salvation becomes the gift you most prize, that peace with God comes, and with it true peace in your life.

It is the easiest and hardest gift to receive. Easy, because all you have to do is ask Christ to come into your life; hard because you have to receive him on his terms — that he be Lord of your life. You have to confess your sinfulness and helplessness to change. If you do, then you will receive the blessing of peace of which the angels spoke.

To you who have already done this, you know how easy it is to fall back into old patterns. Too many Christians live as though the peace of Christ had left them. It hasn't gone anywhere; God is not at odds with you. The Bible says:

For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Be reminded this Christmas of the joy and the peace that is now yours through Jesus Christ.