Get the irony of this setting here. God is announcing the birth of the final sacrificial lamb to shepherds who are watching over sacrificial lambs. God is announcing to men who are considered unclean that the Savior has been born who will cleanse them. God is announcing to people out of fellowship with the worship system of Israel that a baby is born who will be able to bring them into fellowship with God.
The first Christmas night was anything but ordinary. While most of the world slept, God chose a group of lowly shepherds to witness a miracle. This angelic announcement didn't go to royalty or high priests, but to those society often ignored. Imagine being among those shepherds watching over sheep when suddenly the sky burst into song and you're told the most amazing news of all time. Today we'll revisit that incredible night.
Heaven's silence was broken by an angelic choir and the world changed forever. In the early 1830s, a portrait painter was becoming fairly well known for his skill and talent. He was excited. He wrote his wife about being able to fully support them in the days ahead. His name was Henry Morse and on one lengthy trip away, he was painting some portraits of some well-known people and was away for quite a while. He and his wife wrote letters each day to sort of keep it steady, especially the news of her due date and their next child. Back then, of course, mail was terribly slow.
If you can imagine it, just 175 years ago, mail was still traveling by Pony Express. In fact, when Abraham Lincoln won the election in 1861, it took nearly a month for the news to reach coast to coast. Well, for Henry Morse, letters from his wife stopped arriving and weeks went by without a word. Finally, he received a letter from his father telling him that his wife, soon after delivering their baby, had suffered a heart attack and had passed away.
The news was so late in arriving, Henry wasn't even able to make it home for his wife's funeral. Had planted a seed in his mind, there had to be a better way to communicate faster. He stopped painting, dedicated his life to experimenting with electric impulses, created a code that translated those impulses into Latin letters. And on May 24, 1884, from inside the old Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., surrounded by dignitaries, Samuel Morse demonstrated his new invention. And he sent a message by what would become known as the telegraph to his associate in Baltimore, Maryland. The first telegram was only four words. What God hath wrought.
In other words, look at what God did. I've heard that human history, up to the point of the telegraph, was nicknamed the great hush. The great hush was about to end. Messages could now travel nearly at the speed of light, thanks to Henry Morse. Well, if you know your biblical history for the last 400 plus years between the Old Testament and the New Testament, there were no messages from heaven. You could call it the hush of heaven.
But that was all about to change. God is going to deliver a message to planet earth. It isn't a telegram.
You could call it an angel-gram, I suppose. He's going to send it by angels who can travel faster than we can even imagine. Their message is never lost in transmission either. In fact, everyone who receives an angel-gram gets the message. Well, this particular hush of heaven, this period of silence, is going to end. God sends a choir of angels.
You could call them, I suppose, the original Christmas choir. Luke is the only gospel writer, by the way, to record this event. So in chapter 2, we're given the news. Of course, you more than likely are familiar, if you're not new to the faith, that Joseph and Mary have arrived in Bethlehem because of that imperial decree to pay taxes literally to register for the draft, the military draft. So Bethlehem is overrun with people. This is inconvenient for this young couple, very costly if not dangerous for Mary to travel so close to her due date.
They're making the best out of the worst of conditions. Verse 7 informs us that when they arrive, they find shelter in a Bethlehem stable, more than likely a shallow cave, commonly used in that region to provide shelter for animals. What we do know is that Mary goes into labor. We also know that there are no doctors, no nurses, no midwife, no one to help this frightened teenage girl who's now experiencing contractions. Back in their hometown of Nazareth, under normal conditions, if everything had gone according to plan, and that plan would never come to fruition, the birth of a son, the newborn son, would have launched a village-wide celebration.
But instead, I mean, here they are virtually alone. They've swaddled their baby with strips of cloth. Mary is evidently so exhausted, and Joseph too, that they've placed Jesus in a manger, verse 7 says. You know, when our children were first born, perhaps for you as well, Marcia and I took turns holding them for hours, and the nurses might take them away for something. There would come a time when we wish the nurses kept them.
So here they are literally putting him in a feed trough, probably a ledge carved in to the side of that cave, arranged perhaps with some fresh straw, maybe Joseph's cloak. That's how tired they are. That's how alone this is. Not one friend, not one family member there to celebrate with them or congratulate them. In fact, it was the custom during these days for the father of the newborn to hire musicians to bring music into this scene.
There are no musicians in sight. But then again, God the Father is arranged for something, choirs warming up nearby. Now, with that, let's get into the text here a little more carefully at verse 8.
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. 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.'" Familiar words to those of us older in the faith.
The Son of God has just been born, and shepherds are the first to find out. Now, you would think that such an important message like this would be telegraphed to more important people, perhaps into the temple precinct, and the priests who are on duty, or perhaps to the home of the high priest. That would make sense. Or at least to the Sanhedrin, Israel's Supreme Court.
That would be logical. But I got to tell you, one of the first things that amazes me about this account is who God ignored. Who He ignored.
If you were assigned the public relations job of announcing the birth of God the Son, you would begin by making a list of everyone who is in any way important in this nation. But God seems to ignore everybody who ought to be on the list. He bypasses the educated. He bypasses the politically connected. He bypasses the wealthy.
He bypasses the religious, the power players. He doesn't announce it to the Sanhedrin. He doesn't announce it to the high priest.
He doesn't have anybody send a memo over there to Caesar Augustus or the Roman Senate. The astounding thing is whom God ignored. It's equally shocking who God told. We're told here by Luke that there are some shepherds camping out in the field watching over their flock. Now for generations, shepherds were equally despised with tax collectors and lepers. They weren't outcasts. They weren't able to keep all the religious ceremony. They couldn't wash their hands out there in the hillside before they ate. They weren't supposed to touch blood or dead animals and that's really the job description of a shepherd who delivered lambs and fought off wolves. So they are considered perpetually dirty, unclean. According to the Mishnah, a codified Jewish scribal law that had been collected years before Jesus, shepherds were not allowed to worship in the temple.
They were permanently banned. Add to that the fact that they worked on the Sabbath. I mean the sheep had this bad habit of never taking Saturday off so neither could the shepherds.
So they're disqualified from worship and yet they are the ones to whom God sends the message of the Savior's birth. But I don't think these are just any shepherds. These shepherds were camped out in the fields where Boaz used to work, the fields where he had spotted a Gentile widow by the name of Ruth where he demonstrated the grace of God in shocking his community too by the way and choosing a former Gentile idolater to be his bride.
It's in these same fields that their great-grandson, a shepherd boy named David, is running around practicing with his slingshot, tending sheep. Now in this same field, shepherds are the first as a demonstration of the grace of God to hear the news that Jesus was born, someone who would call himself the good, what? Shepherd, John 10-11, whom the Apostle Peter called our chief shepherd, 1 Peter 5-4. In Hebrews 13-20, Jesus is called the great shepherd.
He's choosing a term that would have been despised. As a side note, I find it interesting that the title shepherd happens to be the title God selected for the men who would lead and feed the Lord's church. Of all of the titles God could have chosen, he chose this title shepherd translated pastors in Ephesians 4-11 from which we get our word pastures. Pastors are to pasture the flock to lead them to green pasture. So it's ironic to me that the term for those who lead the church in worship is the same term for men who were never able to worship in the temple. This is the grace of God.
I want to make one more observation here. Verse 8 informs us that the shepherds are in the vicinity of Bethlehem if you combine verse 4 and verse 8. Bethlehem is only six miles south of Jerusalem. It's sort of the rural outskirts of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, of course, would swell with several million Jews during festival seasons, especially Passover, as they came with their lambs to sacrifice and celebrate their former deliverance. And this was going to be sort of the setting of Jesus' arrival on that same day. He would have been surrounded by, Josephus said, 250,000 sheep.
Where would all these sheep come from? Well, many people raised their own, but the temple raised sheep and other animals, which it sold to worshippers. In fact, it was big business, frankly, for the temple.
There's another rule that's recorded in the Mishnah that codified law, a copy I referred to earlier. The Mishnah records this law that sheep found between Jerusalem and Bethlehem were qualified for temple sacrifice. More than likely, these shepherds are on the temple payroll. They're working for the priesthood. They're watching over thousands of lambs and sheep, flocks destined for the sacrificial altar in Jerusalem.
So get the irony of this setting here. God is announcing the birth of the final sacrificial lamb to shepherds who are watching over sacrificial lambs. God is announcing to men who are considered unclean that the Savior has been born who will cleanse them.
God is announcing to people out of fellowship, so to speak, with the worship system of Israel, that a baby is born who will be able to bring them into fellowship with God. Now, that's just verse 8. Verse 9 is where the fireworks start. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.
Well, I guess so. It's been nearly 500 years since an angel has interacted with humanity. And they're about to see the lights in the sky just sort of explode. Verse 10, and the angel said to them, fear not.
Easy for him to say. Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Front of you is born this day in the city of David, that is Bethlehem, the house of bread from which was born, the bread of life, a Savior who is Christ the Lord. Now, that's a loaded series of titles, three titles for this newborn baby. The first title is Savior. That's a politically combustible term, Soter, Savior. That was known all over the Roman Empire.
That's because it was a title already adopted by Caesar Augustus. He claimed to be the Soter, the Savior of the world. So the Gentiles, in fact to whom Luke is writing, will perk up their ears with that reference of a Soter, a Savior. The next title is the title Christ, Christos, the anointed one. The Jewish community, their ears would perk up with that one because only the Messiah could claim the title Christos or Christ. So with these two titles, the Gentile world is listening and the Jewish world is listening.
But then you have this last title which sort of summarizes everything. It's breathtaking. The Savior, this Christ, is also the Lord, Kurios. It happens to be the Greek counterpart to the Hebrew term Yahweh.
In fact, throughout the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, which was quoted from by Jesus and Paul the Apostle, more than 6,000 times it says, the translation of Yahweh is Kurios. Lord means Jehovah, Yahovah, Yahweh, God. So these lyrics, so to speak, have this astonishing claim about the Savior.
You could read the announcement this way if I paraphrase and sort of expand it. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is the anointed Messiah and none other than Jehovah in the flesh. Savior, Christ, Lord. And by the way, the true Gospel demands all three titles. In fact, the Apostle Paul declares in Romans 10, 9 that in order to be saved, you must declare, you must confess with your mouth that Jesus is Kurios, Jesus is Lord.
That isn't a statement of your submission, by the way, to his mastery. That's a statement that you believe he is deity. He is God in flesh.
In fact, one day, beloved, when you see the face of Jesus, you're going to be looking into the face of Jehovah God, Jesus. Well in verse 13, you might notice it says that they are praising God and saying. The Greek word praising is the verb eineo.
It's rarely found in the Greek New Testament. But it's often used in that Septuagint, that Greek translation of the Old Testament for the verb Hallel. You may recognize Hallel, the Hallel songs. That refers to praising God primarily through singing. The Hallels were put to music throughout Israel's history. So eineo in the New Testament is interchangeable with Hallel in the Old Testament.
I can see your eyes glazing over with excitement over this language study. Well, just remember this. Both terms refer to praising God through song. So let me amplify verse 13 with that in mind.
You could say it this way. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the Havalios praising God with these lyrics. They're singing and now this is what they're saying.
That is, these are the lyrics they're singing. So you can keep your hymnal. Glory to God in the highest. This is poetic form, musical form.
And on earth peace among those with whom he is well pleased. What a choir this must have been. Imagine 100 million strong singing. This original Christmas choir is literally exploding the heavens above with the grace and gospel of God. I couldn't help but think of the fact that before the creation of the universe, the angels were created. The oldest book in the Old Testament is the book of Job and in the book of Job we're told that while God, in fact the Son of God, Colossians confirms it, is speaking, let there be light.
Let the earth swarm with creatures. He's speaking this into existence that the angels are singing while he's doing that. Job chapter 37 or 38. And then you go all the way to the end of human history. The book of Revelation in chapter 19, it tells us that we the redeemed will be singing a lot with the host of heaven, glory to the Lamb. So you have in between the creation of the world and the final glory of heaven, here you have in Luke 2 this angelic choir at this most significant moment in world history singing. Now Luke writes in verse 15, when the angels went away from them into heaven, they finished their song, the shepherd 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. The verb translated they found their way means to discover after searching.
There's some searching involved. They were given the sign. They're looking not just for a newborn baby, no doubt other babies had been born with this sudden imposition of the Roman Empire traveling here to this community, but they're looking for a baby that is so impoverished. They're looking for a baby belonging to parents so poor, so alone, without any friends, without any family. The sign is a baby swaddled, lying in a feed trough.
No other baby is going to be there. That was the sign. And when they finally discover Jesus, verse 17, when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.
Evidently, there's a crowd gathering now. Verse 19, that 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 to them. By the way, you notice the shepherds are now glorifying and praising God. The implication is they're singing what the angels had sung.
They were evidently fast learners. They've got this tune down their head. Has it ever occurred to you that angels haven't sung in the skies every Christmas season since this event? Why not? I mean, I would completely drown out, here comes Santa Claus, with this cosmic stereo system.
Why doesn't he? Well, we know that the angels will sing in the future, but for now, God has chosen his choir to be composed of you and me. Ordinary, simple, faltering, forgiven children of God. We're his choir now. We are his choir now. And by the way, you're listening to just another shepherd today in a long line, now 2,000 years long. And I'm repeating the news to you that this one's been born, and he is, he must be your Savior, your Messiah, your Lord God. The message first delivered to shepherds remains true today.
Jesus, the Savior, Messiah and Lord came for you. Let's continue sharing that incredible news and singing the song that began that night. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey.
This message is called The Original Christmas Choir. Our website makes it easy to share content. When you access any of our lessons, you'll see share buttons for all the major social media platforms. Simply click and share the message with your network. Let's reach more people together. And of course, join us back here next time as we continue to grow in wisdom for the heart. Thank you.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-19 01:14:01 / 2024-12-19 01:22:31 / 9