To You This Day is Born A Saviour
Luke 2: 8 – 15
My guess is that all of you here know the Christmas story…
What makes this story so great?
What makes this story so great is that it is the story of how God comes to us in the friendliest of ways.
Think about it: God who is so great comes to us in the birth of baby Jesus.
What sort of person is afraid of a baby or of a fifteen year old girl?
There is no greater treasure than to know that God comes to us in such a friendly coming as this.
But there is more…
That the Son of God became incarnate, took on human flesh, became one like us, and came so close to us in such a friendly way is a great story. But if the story stopped there, that is all that it would be: a great story! There is more to this story, though. It is that it has a messenger and a message. Without the messenger all we would have is a story and a story teller, but no message – and no sermon!
Listen to this verse from Luke 2 to see if you can spot the messenger and hear the message.
And in that region there were shepherds our in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And the angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people”. Lk 2: 8,9
The messenger is the angel of the Lord.
Our problem is that while we can know that there is a God, there is no natural way for us to identify who God is. How could we get to know Him unless He first made Himself known to us? This is why God sent a messenger.
The messenger was necessary. Unless he came to the shepherds neither they nor we would have know that Christ was born.
The Angelic messenger is what makes this great story even greater. But there is still …
What makes this story even greater yet is the message God gave to His Angel. The message came in two parts. The first began with the words “Do not be Afraid”.
It is proper that people should be afraid before God and His messenger. Who could bear the radiance of God’s glory? Who could stand in the heat of His consuming presence? Who could set their eyes on such Majesty as is His? Who would not tremble with fear before such a Holy God? Except that God has come to us we could not come to Him. His coming to us is what changes everything. The Angel brought a friendly message of God’s coming to us. His is a friendly coming!
Here, God comes to us not as judge but as friend. He comes as the Father of Jesus telling us that He is pleased with us as with His own Son (Lk 2;14). Further, we do not need to be terrified of Him because of His own invitation and command: “Be not afraid!”
Listen some more to these verses from Luke 2 to hear the second part of the message.
And in that region there were shepherds our in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And the angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people”. Lk 2: 8 & 9
The Angel of the Lord came with “good news of a great joy”. Who does not need a message like that? Joy! You might ask: “What is that? What is joy?” Wouldn’t you like a bit of it? But what is it? How do you get it? I do not think that I am at all qualified to tell you about joy. As God’s messenger, though, I can tell you to pursue it, make it a life goal to be filled with joy, after all it is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5: 22 & 23). Won’t you come with me on a journey for the rest of your life to pursue joy? We are instructed, “Seek and you shall find” (Lk 11: 11 – 13).
The word joy in Greek, karis, can be translated gift, grace or joy. Whichever one is used, Jesus is at the heart of the meaning of each of those words.
First, let us look at hat word gift. Ho ho! This is the season of gift giving in which we celebrate the greatest present of all: Christ’s presence with us. Jesus is the greatest gift of all. All other gifts are to point us to or remind us of Jesus. Ultimately, what makes the Christmas story the Greatest story of all are not the details of the story about a baby, his mother and father or the Angel and shepherds, but the message of the Angel which was, “To you this day is born a Saviour, Christ the Lord!” (Lk 2: 11) Without that announcement we would have no idea what the Christmas story is about: God’s act of saving us from our sin to “live under Him in His Kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness”. Wow!
Christ was not born for His own sake, but for ours! A Saviour is someone who helps another out of trouble. The Son of God came to save us from sin, death and the devil. He came to save us for a life of eternal joy and blessing. The climax of the Christmas story is this message that “to you this day is born a Saviour”. That is gospel good news. There is no other gospel. As Luther wrote, “Christ could be born twenty, a hundred, a thousand times and it would not help us, if the sermon of the angel were not added. Without this message the holy birth would be nothing; it would be as though it never happened. It would have no value”. Jesus said, “No greater love has a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”. So Christmas is God’s friendly coming to us to be our Saviour.
As to the word grace, the gift of Christmas is all grace. Grace is expressed in the Acronym: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. There is nothing that we receive from God that did not come at a cost or that has not been paid for in full already, and that “not with silver or gold, but with…………. (Luther’s Explanation to the 2nd Article of the Apostles Creed taken from 1 Peter)
Let’s draw a few other clues about joy from the Christmas story. There is an acronym for joy that goes: Jesus, Others, You. What do you think? True enough, but it seems to miss the majesty of joy which flows from Christ.
Joy is something that comes to us: “I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people”. Joy is real. It can be seen on faces, it is felt; it is experienced. It is not imaginary as though I might say, “I imagine that I have joy even though I do not feel it, or you cannot see it at work in me, or I do not experience it”. What nonsense that is! Joy is where heaven meets earth; it is bathing in God’s presence, reveling in His Word, celebrating His gifts, especially the forgiveness of my sin – yours too if you need it. It is pleasure in God’s company by abiding in His Word and obeying His commandments (John 15: 1 -10) The Holy Spirit ministers joy to us as we draw near to Christ in His Word. Joy comes to those who wait on the Lord. It comes to those who ask and seek God for it.
We might say that the gift of Christmas is that Christ is born, the grace of Christmas is how much it cost Him to be our Saviour, and the joy of Christmas is that He came as our Saviour.
So, we have the details of the Christmas story that make it great. Then we note what makes it even greater are the messenger and his message. All of this tells us of a
Righteous, Holy God who comes to us in the friendliest of ways.
To whom is this message given? I prefer that the messenger came to shepherds and not to kings and rulers or the high and mighty, don’t you? We tend to pick on the “Intellectuals”, but we can be equally arrogant and smart… The shepherds were not learned. They were from the low class, they were unknown and perhaps despised. God only comes to those who are lowly of heart… The proud resist him.
One thing is for sure, the shepherds did not sleep through the night of Jesus’ coming.
The shepherds were consumed with the message of the Angel. They were not distracted by why the message came to them in the first place, or who or what exactly the Angel of the Lord was. Their focus was not on the splendid spectacle of the Angel, but on his message. Luther said, “Whoever accepts God’s message for the preacher’s sake neither believes the message nor in God.., but believes the preacher and believes in the preacher. Therefore his faith does not last long either”. When the preacher is gone so is his faith. The important thing is what the messenger has come to say. So our first job is to listen to what he says, as did the shepherds. Unless you are willing to believe what he says, you will not believe that he ever appeared to the shepherds, nor will you experience the joy of the shepherds.
It is as St Paul wrote in Romans:
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?" Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. (Romans 10: 14 – 17)
St Luke continues,
“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest. On earth peace among men with whom He is pleased” (on whom His favour rests, that is believers). Luke 2: 13 & 14
Ah! We are getting close to how every good story should finish. In the sermon of the Angel that “to you is born a Saviour” we have the whole of scripture tied up in one joyful bundle. The only fitting response is Spirit inspired joy. Only after the sermon of the Angel do we get this response of praise.
IF CHRIST DID NOT COME
(Luke 2: 10 and John 15: 22)
A Minister fell asleep on Christmas morning and dreamed what it would be like if he lived in a world in which Christ had not come. His dream was so realistic.
As he walked through his house he saw no stockings hung on the chimney, no Christmas tree or wreath of holly, no Christ to comfort or gladden hearts and bring us salvation. He walked outside and saw no church, but was most astonished of all to see that, when he came back inside, every book about the Saviour had disappeared.
His dream continued as the door bell rang and a messenger asked him to visit a friend’s poor dying mother. He did. And he opened the Bible to look for a well known Scripture, but the Bible ended with Malachi. There was no fulfillment of the gospel with its promise of hope and salvation. All that he could do was bow his head and weep with his friend and his friend’s mother - in despair. Two days later he stood beside her coffin and he conducted her funeral service, but there was no message of comfort, no words of a glorious resurrection, and no thought of heaven. There was only dust to dust and ashes to ashes and one long, eternal farewell.
Finally he realized that Christ had not come and he burst into tears, and wept bitterly in his sorrowful dream. He then awoke with astart and a great shout of joy. Praise burst from his lips as he heard his choir singing these words in his church nearby because they were practicing for the Christmas play that would come just a few days down the road. He heard them singing:
Come and behold Him
Born the King of Angels
Come let us adore Him
Christ the Lord.
“I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all of the people. Today, in the town of David, a Saviour has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2: 10
Those who do not believe the message cannot join in this song of praise. To them the words sound more like God telling them to do something. It is not their natural response after hearing the sermon of the messengers to praise and worship. Yet because the Son of God came down to earth we are able to lift Him up in praise with out fear of recrimination for our unworthiness. The only way to peace and joy is to be freed from the worship of self and the burden of our own glory. People who give God the glory have peace in and among themselves. They know there can be no room for glory seeking. They count every Word of God worth innumerable times the value of any human wisdom no matter the messenger, his oratory, his stature, the quality of his sermons or their delivery or their blood relation. They unite in the worship of God if not in other things. They are full of good will toward each other and join with the heavenly hosts in joyful worship of their baby king.
What a great story and what a friendly coming by a friendly God who is full of goodwill toward mankind. I invite you to join the heavenly hosts in praise of God……..
