SPEAKER_00: We'd like to invite you to open up your Bibles to our scripture reading today, which is found in the Gospel of Luke in your New Testament portion.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to be reading a little bit of the very tail end of chapter one and into chapter two.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible with you, you can find a Pew Bible in front of you, and that's found on page 857.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to actually begin reading our text at the tail end of what is known as Zechariah's song, because these verses are going to be illustrated in the main focus of our passage today.
SPEAKER_00: So I would begin in verses, verse 76 of Luke chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of John the Baptist, we read, and you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High.
SPEAKER_00: For you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
SPEAKER_00: And then picking up in chapter two, verse six.
SPEAKER_00: And while they were there, the time came for her, Mary, 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.
SPEAKER_00: And in the same reason there was region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
SPEAKER_00: And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And this will be a sign for you.
SPEAKER_00: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he's pleased.
SPEAKER_00: When the angels went away from them in the 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.
SPEAKER_00: And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger.
SPEAKER_00: And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.
SPEAKER_00: And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.
SPEAKER_00: But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.
SPEAKER_00: And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it has been told them.
SPEAKER_00: Here ends the reading of God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: Well, our culture in America is struggling to tell the story of the advent of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The story of Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: We are struggling to tell it well.
SPEAKER_00: We're struggling anymore to tell it at all.
SPEAKER_00: I recently listened to a very gifted composer who was commissioned to write some music for the Advent season.
SPEAKER_00: And he explained how he loved the rich heritage of Advent and how it had always blessed him.
SPEAKER_00: But he felt like it was time to bring something fresh to the table.
SPEAKER_00: And so he did.
SPEAKER_00: He teamed up with another talented colleague.
SPEAKER_00: And together they marshaled all their creativity and produced a series of pieces celebrating the arrival of the snow queen.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about a snow queen, but I know that this composer's voice is only one of many these days who are raising the question of whether the biblical historical story about the birth of Jesus is really tired and worn out and has outlived its stay.
SPEAKER_00: Or does the real problem lie with the storytellers of our culture?
SPEAKER_00: Well, this morning we're going to address this question by returning to one of the well-known accounts of the birth of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Our author here is asking us to bring something to the table.
SPEAKER_00: And he's asking us to bring our honesty to the table.
SPEAKER_00: And let this story speak for itself.
SPEAKER_00: Each of these questions is going to deal with some specific parts of this story that God wants us to hear.
SPEAKER_00: The first story, I mean, the first question is, why did God come to shepherds at night?
SPEAKER_00: Why did he come to shepherds and why did he come to them at night?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, of all the people and at all the times, what is the significance of this?
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I think we need to know about Scripture, it will just help us immensely, is to know that God is huge on symbols.
SPEAKER_00: No doubt God loves to communicate with words.
SPEAKER_00: But there's something about symbols that just brings out new dimensions of the wisdom and the glory and the depths of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is true whether we're talking about in the Old Testament the animal sacrifices, richly laden symbols pointing to Jesus, or whether we're talking in the New Testament about Jesus, who, when he died on the cross, there were three hours of darkness that was happening.
SPEAKER_00: There's just a richness to be seen in the symbols of the words of the text.
SPEAKER_00: The very first announcement from heaven of the birth of God's Son to people was given at night and in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that's a coincidence.
SPEAKER_00: This world has been a dark and broken place ever since the fall.
SPEAKER_00: The world is not a hospitable place.
SPEAKER_00: You know that.
SPEAKER_00: Luke is making a very powerful point here.
SPEAKER_00: God is light.
SPEAKER_00: And he is entering a world that is full of people like you and me who are sitting in the shadow of death.
SPEAKER_00: Our hearts know this.
SPEAKER_00: There's something in us that just knows this.
SPEAKER_00: Even if we deny its reality, there's something in us that knows that this world is a dark and inhospitable place.
SPEAKER_00: It's a place that offers no lasting hope at all.
SPEAKER_00: It's a place that at the end of the day is going to disappoint us.
SPEAKER_00: Well, not only was the time meaningful, but so was the choice that God made of his first human messengers.
SPEAKER_00: Shepherds.
SPEAKER_00: Shepherds were in a responsible occupation.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, oftentimes in a family, this would have fallen to young boys.
SPEAKER_00: And shepherds had to be brave.
SPEAKER_00: They faced a lot of danger.
SPEAKER_00: But in the time of Jesus, shepherds had fallen into kind of a bad reputation, apparently.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes they were hired out and their word wasn't trusted.
SPEAKER_00: They were thieves sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they came from a dubious background.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think the best comparison in our day for this culture here might be, and I hope this doesn't offend any of you, but it might be the people who harvest at farm time.
SPEAKER_00: Those of you who own farms and who are make, who are decision makers know that when it comes time to harvest corn or comes time to bring the beets out of the field, it's really hard to find good laborers to do that work.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to entrust them with very expensive equipment at times.
SPEAKER_00: Your yearly income at some level hinges on how well they do their work.
SPEAKER_00: And it's hard to find men and women who can do that well.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's something about how shepherds were in that day.
SPEAKER_00: And isn't it amazing?
SPEAKER_00: This is the class of people that God chooses to carry out his plan of communication of the greatest event in human history.
SPEAKER_00: Don't think he didn't have a plan.
SPEAKER_00: We have a plan.
SPEAKER_00: How are we going to communicate important business decisions to the right people?
SPEAKER_00: And God has that plan too.
SPEAKER_00: And he had a plan to carry out this by ordinary, lowly people.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't come to the religious leaders.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't appear to the royal classes.
SPEAKER_00: He came to common people.
SPEAKER_00: Because the message that he's bringing is for all the people.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people believe the lie that they're just not worth saving.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people believe the lie that they're beyond being saved.
SPEAKER_00: But God is sending us a very powerful message.
SPEAKER_00: It's for all the people living under the shadow of death.
SPEAKER_00: A second question: what did God really want the people to know?
SPEAKER_00: What did he want them to know?
SPEAKER_00: We're told in the story that there was a real angel, an angelic being, that appeared out in the field at night.
SPEAKER_00: And then along with this angel, an angel of the Lord, a messenger, that the glory of the Lord shone.
SPEAKER_00: We read in the Old Testament many times of something called the Shekinah glory.
SPEAKER_00: It was something God did time and again, where He brought a great light, a burning bright fire or light.
SPEAKER_00: Often it was put in a cloud.
SPEAKER_00: And it was there to symbolize his presence.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a terrifying thing at times.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is in this case.
SPEAKER_00: What God is showing here is number one, he's showing up himself.
SPEAKER_00: The very presence of God appears in the presence of these angels.
SPEAKER_00: And they are coming bearing his words.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting that the shepherds respond with fear.
SPEAKER_00: They're greatly terrified.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in Scripture, wherever the presence of God shows up and people see the glory of God, there is very often this kind of terror or fear.
SPEAKER_00: You see this, for example, in the Old Testament, in the well-known story of Isaiah chapter 6, where Isaiah says that he saw the Lord seated on his throne, and the glory of God filled the whole temple.
SPEAKER_00: And Isaiah said, Woe to me, for I'm ruined.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: See, there's something about our fallenness when it's in the presence of God's holiness.
SPEAKER_00: We're guilty of moral failures against people, against ourselves, against our creator.
SPEAKER_00: And there's something in us that just wants to hide from God.
SPEAKER_00: Think of your own soul.
SPEAKER_00: How often in your life have you felt really relaxed in the presence of God?
SPEAKER_00: Even after you become a Christian, this can be something you struggle with for years.
SPEAKER_00: There's something about our unholiness and our unrighteousness that just brings up guilt and a desire to hide from God.
SPEAKER_00: But in spite of this, God's very message to these shepherds was fear not.
SPEAKER_00: Fear not.
SPEAKER_00: I bring you good news of great joy that is going to run to the very core of your soul.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to stay in a place where you're afraid of my holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm sending you a Savior.
SPEAKER_00: A Savior has been born to you.
SPEAKER_00: He's the Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that has been predicted from all human history past.
SPEAKER_00: He's the Lord, the sovereign of all.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
SPEAKER_00: But I am sending you a Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And he is going to fall into the hands of the living God in your place.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that?
SPEAKER_00: There's a third question that just builds on the second.
SPEAKER_00: What is up with the manger?
SPEAKER_00: If you heard when I read our text this morning, you probably picked up this refrain.
SPEAKER_00: Three times in this story, we're told that Jesus was laid in a manger.
SPEAKER_00: Three times.
SPEAKER_00: The very first resting place of the Holy Son of God is in an animal feeding trough.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever else you might think about an animal feeding trough, there's a few things that are obvious about it.
SPEAKER_00: It's a lowly place.
SPEAKER_00: No matter how comfortable it may have been with straw and hay, it was a lowly place.
SPEAKER_00: The symbolism here, God doesn't want you to miss.
SPEAKER_00: It was an in an undignified place.
SPEAKER_00: It was a base place.
SPEAKER_00: Just think about royalty amongst human beings.
SPEAKER_00: I'm always amazed at the length that royalty goes to show dignity and honor of their status.
SPEAKER_00: They'll do it in the clothes they wear.
SPEAKER_00: They'll do it on the animals that they ride on.
SPEAKER_00: They'll do it with the instruments that line the roads before them.
SPEAKER_00: They'll do it with the gestures that they impose on their subjects and expect and feel entitled to receive.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, there's a word for all of this.
SPEAKER_00: We call it pomp.
SPEAKER_00: But when God sends his son into the world, the intentional arrangement that he made shouted one thing very loud and clear.
SPEAKER_00: There is no distance to which God would not go for you to demonstrate his love for you.
SPEAKER_00: There is no indignity that he will not suffer for you.
SPEAKER_00: Though he owns it all, and though he created it all, he's going to take the place of the lowest of the low.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be the servant at the very bottom rung.
SPEAKER_00: We have this said in another place in the New Testament, and it's said so well.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of Jesus, in Philippians, we read, because he was in the form of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's the way God is, see?
SPEAKER_00: Because he was in the form of God, he did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus emptied himself by taking the form of a servant and being born in the likeness of men and being found in human.
SPEAKER_00: Formed, he humbled himself by being obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: This is the kind of Lord and Christ and Savior that Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: This is the kind of loving Lord that God is calling us to surrender to.
SPEAKER_00: To surrender our independence to.
SPEAKER_00: And he did it so that we could become what he always intended us to become.
SPEAKER_00: And to know a life and an eternity of great joy.
SPEAKER_00: There's a fourth question that continues to build in this Advent narrative.
SPEAKER_00: It's a question of the singing angels.
SPEAKER_00: What is going on with the singing angels?
SPEAKER_00: Up to this point in the story, there has been only one angel, an angel of the Lord, who has spoken for God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in a kind of startling display, there's a kind of window that pops open in the field.
SPEAKER_00: And there is this great heavenly host of angels.
SPEAKER_00: I think when we think of this, a lot of times we get the wrong picture.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe some of the songs we sing at Christmas have led us in this direction, or some of the Christmas art that we've seen.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe you picture angels lined up in a choir loft, arranged by the quality of their voices and with robes and placidly and passively singing Christmas hymns.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's the picture at all here.
SPEAKER_00: The word that's used for the angels is the word the host.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes in the Old Testament, this word points to the armies of God.
SPEAKER_00: And there were times in Old Testament history where God just kind of opened up a window.
SPEAKER_00: And there were people who got to see that actually, beyond this world, there is another world where there are angelic beings who are not embodied like we are.
SPEAKER_00: But they can be seen when God makes them to be seen.
SPEAKER_00: And some of these people have seen times when the hills were full of the army of God.
SPEAKER_00: And the army of God isn't an army that fights for God in his place.
SPEAKER_00: The army of God are his messengers that do his bidding.
SPEAKER_00: And the army of God is passionate about God.
SPEAKER_00: And the army of God knows that the brokenness of our universe goes beyond even the fall of human history.
SPEAKER_00: There's a brokenness that goes all the way back to the falling of the angels.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know when that happened.
SPEAKER_00: But I know that this world has never been what God intended it to be for a long, long, long time.
SPEAKER_00: But now there's a turning point in history.
SPEAKER_00: There's something new that is happening.
SPEAKER_00: The beginning of the end is coming.
SPEAKER_00: The Son of God has come into the world.
SPEAKER_00: And the army of God is passionate and is shouting and is singing a song of triumph.
SPEAKER_00: The God's glory is now going to be taken to a whole new level.
SPEAKER_00: If you think creation was glorious, you haven't seen anything yet.
SPEAKER_00: Look in the manger.
SPEAKER_00: This is our God who is love and justice.
SPEAKER_00: And is going to show us how those two things will meet in his own self in the years to come.
SPEAKER_00: And the angels enforce the word that was given to the shepherds that the result of this is going to be peace to humankind, to those on whom God puts his favor, to those who trust and surrender themselves to him.
SPEAKER_00: What a powerful invitation these angels give.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you hear it as a great invitation to you.
SPEAKER_00: Well, finally, I want to conclude with a final question.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think the shepherds made a good call?
SPEAKER_00: All at once we're told the angels disappeared.
SPEAKER_00: The shepherds were left to decide what they would do with the invitation they'd received.
SPEAKER_00: Would they give up their fear and go to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Would they find the peace that the angels had sung about?
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a given that they would do that.
SPEAKER_00: There are many people who hear Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And many people who heard Jesus when he was alive, and who chose to stay in the place of fear and in the place of bondage.
SPEAKER_00: John testifies this in his gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He says that light has come into the world, but men love darkness.
SPEAKER_00: It would not come into the light.
SPEAKER_00: The town came out to see what had happened.
SPEAKER_00: The demons had been cast into a whole herd of pigs that had gone into the sea and had drowned.
SPEAKER_00: And there was this striking image in front of the townspeople.
SPEAKER_00: Dead pigs, hundreds of them.
SPEAKER_00: And the man who had been crazy sitting there in his right mind with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And the invitation was there before them.
SPEAKER_00: And they told Jesus to go.
SPEAKER_00: They sent him away.
SPEAKER_00: The tragedy of that story is palpable.
SPEAKER_00: They sent him away.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why they did that, but I suspect it had to do with fear.
SPEAKER_00: I suspect it had to do that deep down, it's a surrender issue.
SPEAKER_00: They were terrified at facing their own sin.
SPEAKER_00: It happens that way.
SPEAKER_00: When God has exposed our sin to us, there is always this energy within us.
SPEAKER_00: This energy to hide, this energy to not go there.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament calls this suppressing the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll turn anywhere, we'll turn to any idol we can to remove that from our mind.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll exchange the glory of God for the glory of created things.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, if God had a different character, if God had a hard taskmaster kind of character, we might say that that would maybe make some sense.
SPEAKER_00: But turning from this God who surrenders himself for us is the height of folly.
SPEAKER_00: Suppressing the truth will get us nowhere.
SPEAKER_00: Luke didn't give us his account to entertain us with a nice historical story.
SPEAKER_00: He gave it to us to invite us to merge the story of our life into this one.
SPEAKER_00: If we try to live our life independent of Jesus, if we choose to live our life suppressing the truth and ignoring and sending Jesus away, our lives will end up on the hash heap of history, and the tragedy of it will be palpable.
SPEAKER_00: You'll never regret coming to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The praise of the shepherds that they were singing to God, it came from their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: You can't fabricate praise, you can't fabricate real joy and worship.
SPEAKER_00: And we can't get it from any other path than folding our life story into this one.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest story has ever told.
SPEAKER_00: We know it takes a power beyond ourselves for us to surrender our independence to you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you for this solid word of hope that is neither tired nor worn out.
SPEAKER_00: That is the only real relevant story of all time.
SPEAKER_00: We ask, Lord, that you would move right now.
SPEAKER_00: You would move right now in the hearts of your people.
SPEAKER_00: That you would cause us to hear the wooing of the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: That you would give us the grace to leave our fear behind and to trust your goodness and to come to Jesus today.
SPEAKER_00: We pray it in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.