The response to the Christmas gospel is faith with some, unbelief with others.

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Malcolm Nicholson
5 years ago
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1 Luke 2:15-20 Dear children of God, brothers and sisters in Christ, and guests, how do you experience Christmas? How do people in general do it? We see lots of bright coloured lights, which gives us a sense of joy and cheer. Our houses are decorated inside as well with reds and greens, maybe a Christmas tree. There are cards wishing us a joyous Christmas and a blessed New Year. A good meal. You visit with family and friends. And for many people, today is one of the few times in the year they actually attend worship. In the midst of this all there will be so-called Christmas story. The account we just read will receive attention. Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem, the birth of their first child, whom they named Jesus. The shepherds in the field, the angels who sang. A story that is more than just a story. It is an account of the first Christmas. It is the history of the birth of Jesus the Christ. Indeed, it is the birth of the Christ that gave us Christmas. Jesus is the reason for the season. And so, this morning during worship we will focus attention on the birth of our Saviour. And we ll do so by noting what God tells us about the reaction of people to the events that took place. How were things for people that first Christmas day? How did they experience it? What is God teaching us here? Our text this morning is part of a larger whole, Luke 2:1-20. This is quite a special account. It has been authored, humanly speaking, by a well-educated Greek man: the physician Luke. However, in style it is very Hebrew, it contains many Hebraisms. It s too bad these tend to be polished away in English Bible translations. They are important. For example, our text begins with a Hebrew expression And it came to pass : And it came to pass, when the angels had departed from them into heaven, the shepherds said to each other... In Greek you don t use the expression And it came to pass, in Hebrew you do. It s as if Luke wanted to make extra clear that what he is writing is sacred history, is in line with and on par with the historical accounts found in the Law and the Prophets. Another one of these Hebrew aspects is the emphasis on the concept word or message. In Hebrew, the word for word also means thing or event. In the Greek, we don t find the common Greek word for word (logos), but a more specialized term (rhema). In Luke 1&2 the concept word has a strong Hebrew colour. Three illustrations of this. Mary s response to Gabriel s message is May it be to me according to your word. (Luke 1:38). The NIV translates it a little more dynamically: May it be to me as you have said. The same sort of response is found with the shepherds. Verse 15. But note how the NIV translates it there: Let s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. This thing that has happened, is a Hebraism that actually reads this word that has come to pass. In Hebrew, words are not just spoken, words become events, become things as they are actualized. The same Hebraism is also found in verse 19. The NIV notes: Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. All these things is again all these words. Our text this morning thus recounts the reaction of different people to the word, to the acts of God, the events He causes to come about. What is the word to which the shepherds responded? And what is one of the words which Mary treasured in her heart? It s the message the angel conveyed, as found in the verses Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. The word is a message, accompanied by a sign by which the truth of the message might be verified. The sign was a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. The wrapped in cloths bits grabs our attention, but shouldn t really. Wrapping a child in cloths was normal in those days. But lying in a manger, that was different. Boys and girls, shepherds knew all about mangers. Mangers are food troughs in which the food

2 for animals is put, so it doesn t lie on the dirty hard ground of a cave that served as a barn. Shepherds knew about mangers. You don t put a baby in a manger. So a baby in a manger, that was different. That was the sign that would confirm to the shepherds the word of the angel: Christ the Lord is born today. How did the first people react to the word, the event, of Christmas? As we read our text this morning, we will notice there was both faith and unbelief. We listen to God s Word this Christmas morning with this theme: The response to the Christmas gospel is faith with some, unbelief with others. We ll simply follow the course of the passage. The choir of angels have sung their song. A huge army of angels had appeared. But then they are gone again. Gone too, is the angel who had made the initial announcement, who had spoken the Word. The glorious light of the Lord, the Shekinah, is gone as well. The night is silent. All is calm, all is... dark again. Picture the shepherds. Getting up from the ground, standing up. Bewildered and confused. What had they just experienced? What had they heard and seen? What should they do? Yes, what should they do? The Messiah has been born, the Lord. That s what the very existence of Israel is all about. The only reason why Israel lived in the Promised Land was because that s where the Christ of God was to be born. Just as the church on earth today exists as the frontier of God s Kingdom, so Israel bore the Messianic promise, was to give birth to the Messiah. The shepherds had just heard a birth announcement. The nation Israel had given birth to the Christ (Revelation 12). What should the shepherds do? The angel had given them a sign: a child wrapped in cloths lying in the manger, in the town of David. The town of David. The shepherds would have understood where that was. The town of David was not Jerusalem. It was Bethlehem. Bethlehem was the place where it all began with David. David had been a shepherd, like they were. David had written a song about the Lord as a shepherd. Boys and girls, I m sure you know it The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. No doubt a favourite psalm for godly shepherds. The child would be in Bethlehem. In a manger. The shepherds would have understood that too. They wouldn t need GPS to find the manger. In those days animals were often herded together for the nights when it was rainy and stormy. We think of Israel as a warm, dry place. But the fields of Ephratah between Bethlehem and Hebron are about 500 metres above sea-level and could be quite wet. Hence there was a communal herding place by Bethlehem, which used the caves in the area as shelters from storms. The shepherds would have known exactly where they had to be. They decide to go, for they want to see with their own eyes what the angel has told them. This is not like the priest Zechariah, who first wanted to see and then would believe. The shepherds had faith in the word of the angel. They had heard, they had believed, and now they wanted to see. To see is here in the sense of to experience, to be part of it. They wanted to share this special moment in history. And so the shepherds hurried off. I m not quite sure what we re to understand by hurried off. The impression one often has is that the shepherds leave the sheep on their own, let them take care of themselves, and hurry on to the barn-cave. That impression is probably also on account of the fact that in verse 8 we read that there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, nearby. But the extent of nearby is not easily determined. We wouldn t consider Abbotsford to be nearby to Vancouver, but a person from Ontario would. Nearby could still mean an hour of travel on foot. Moreover, the expression hurried off is also found in Luke 1:39: At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea. The journey from Nazareth to the hill country of Judah would have taken at least a whole day. The expression hurry off does not imply the shepherds were a stone s throw away from the manger. Finally, the shepherds don t say that they will go to Bethlehem but that they would go close to Bethlehem. It is quite possible that the shepherds decided to take their flocks along with them. They would have gone as quickly as they could have. But it may well have

3 been daylight by the time the shepherds made it Joseph and Mary. And after their baby-visit, the shepherds would have discussed the events with the people of Bethlehem, see the verse 18. That too, would have been during the day. And only after that would they have returned to the fields as verse 20 tells us. Like I said, I m not sure what exactly to make of this. We ve got to be careful here not to read things into the story that simply are not told us. The point that we need to take note off is that the shepherds, as soon as they have heard the message from the angel, take measures to ensure that they can go and see the baby as soon as possible. They responsibly dropped everything to share in this critical moment of Salvation History. The shepherds thus go whether with or without their flocks is immaterial to see the child lying in a manger. As I said, the shepherds knew where to look. The angel had said: The sign is a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. One might think, there would have been many mangers in Bethlehem. Yet the shepherds find Joseph and Mary and their newborn child. Was it their own manger in which Jesus had been placed by Joseph and Mary? Whatever the case, the shepherds find the baby just as the angel had said they would: a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Yes, what did the shepherds see? There are many nativity scenes that try to depict it. But such scenes are not true to reality. There would have been no animals in the barn-cave, for the shepherds had been out in the fields. No animals, no donkey, no cow, no sheep or goats. Nor would there have been the soft golden glow of light reflecting of hay and straw. And the manger, it wouldn t have been a 3 foot long affair, just the right size to put a baby in. No, the shepherds would have seen this. A young woman, haggard for she s just given birth to her first child. Mary would have been around 20. Joseph, probably quite a bit older. A carpenter with callouses on his hands. The manger, the long food trough at the right height for sheep to eat out of, probably hewn out of the limestone cave wall. At one end, a bundle of cloths with a baby face peeping out of it. The shepherds see poverty, helplessness. The shepherds see the child. The shepherds see...the word of the angel, the Promise of God in the flesh. What would Joseph and Mary have thought as the shepherds came to visit? Maybe they thought, Oh no, the shepherd want their cave for their flock, they re going to chase us out of here. Where will we take Jesus now? Maybe they were frightened, one can picture Joseph moving protectively in front of Mary and the child. But, if there had been tension, it would not have lasted long. For when the shepherds see the child, when they discover things as the angel had told them, they tell Joseph and Mary everything. Verse 17 in the NIV suggests the shepherds told other people, and that s true. But in the original text, verse 17 would first apply to what was said in the barn (see ESV). The shepherds tell the word. The word, there s that Hebrew concept again. The shepherds tell what the angel had said. Congratulations parents. A child. An angel came to tell us he d been born. He is a very special child. Did you know that? He is the Messiah, the Christ, the Lord. And as the shepherds talked and as Joseph and Mary reacted, it would have dawned on them all how truly immense this moment was. The town of David. The Messiah would come from David s line. Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem to register according to the lineage. Joseph was the crown-prince. But because he no longer lived in Bethlehem, they had been forced to spend the night in this animal shelter. As they talked, bits and pieces would have fit together. And the shepherds would have been confirmed all the more in their convictions. It s really true: the Christ has been born!

4 What a special Christmas it was for those shepherds. They had listened to the most beautiful concert ever. The angels had sung praise to God. The shepherds had hurried off to make the baby-visit. They had seen the child. They had talked with the parents. They had begun to grasp the immensity of it all. The Christ is born. The promised prince to the house of David. This is the kind of news you don t keep to yourself. When you re filled with joy, you want to share it will all people. That s how it went for the shepherds. It s not only Joseph and Mary who hear what the shepherds experienced. Others are told it too. Verse 18: All who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. The news would have run through the village of Bethlehem, busy as it was, just as the birth of John the Baptist had been something the whole hill country of Judah had been talking about. Especially the bit about the angels would have gotten people interested. Angels had not appeared for many centuries. That is, until recently, when a priest in the temple claimed to have seen one. The priest who, having seen the angel, could no longer speak. And then his wife became pregnant, even though she was old. And when the child was born, a son, it received a name that was not a family name. And then the priest could talk again. He had sung a song. His son would a prophet. The promised Elijah who would come ahead of the Messiah of God. People had been talking about these things for six months now. We read in Luke 1:65: throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about these things. We have no idea where exactly Zechariah and Elizabeth lived. But Bethlehem is right in the middle of the hill country of Judah., and only about an hour and half away from Jerusalem, where Zechariah had seen the angel. In Bethlehem the news of the birth of John would be known. And now this: an angel who appeared to shepherds, telling them that the child just born is the Messiah, the Christ, the Lord. The shepherds believed. They were convinced the child that was born was indeed the promised Messiah. Those who heard the shepherds were amazed. They were amazed, Luke tells us, at what the shepherds said. The words of the shepherds cause amazement, bewilderment. The people don t know what to make of it. That is strange. For, brothers and sisters, most of the people who heard the shepherds would have been church people. People who lived in Bethlehem. Or people who had come to Bethlehem at a moment s notice, just as Joseph and Mary had, to register themselves there for the census. They were mostly people who read their Bibles and went to the synagogue. They were people who went to the Temple. It is even possible that the shepherds of our text were actually taking care of the sheep that would serve as sacrificial animals in Bethlehem. That s the way it s pictured in the novel Israel s Hope and Expectation by Rudolph van Reest. All who heard it is not like your average Canadian, who knows next to nothing about the real reason for Christmas. They would have been mostly Christians, church people. They were amazed. Last Sunday we heard of Mary singing with great amazement. That was an amazement that went with faith. But here, the sense one gets is that the amazement was one of unbelief. Of the it can t be true kind, and not getting beyond that point. The shepherds were convinced, but the people they spoke with were less convinced. In our text there s a taste of the first resistance to the Gospel of Salvation. How different is the reaction of Mary. God has us know what went on in Mary s heart. The young girl who had experienced so much in the past year. The angel, around nine months ago. The three month stay at Zechariah and Elizabeth s place. The question whether or not Joseph and Mary should marry. A marriage that was still like being engaged: they were husband and wife but not one flesh in every way. The sudden trip to Bethlehem. The contractions and then not being able to find a place to have the child born. Your first labour and birth. As a virgin. Nursing the baby. The baby-visit by the shepherds.

5 Things are churning in the mind of the young Mary. She pondered these things, treasuring them in her heart, and, as most assume, sharing them some 40 or 50 years later with the Greek physician Luke. Mary had come to grasp even more deeply who her child was. Mary experienced her first Christmas in faith. Things had probably gone very differently from how she d hoped. Her child was to be special, so maybe all sorts of preparations had been made in Nazareth to receive the child. Baby-rooms didn t exist in those days, certainly not for people like Joseph and Mary. But you can t imagine them not doing something special. Joseph was a carpenter by trade: maybe he had built a nice baby-crib? But none of it: the baby is born in cave barn, wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger. How Mary would have felt helpless. And yet joyful. For others shared in her joy. The shepherds would have been a huge boost for Joseph and Mary. For the baby in the manger is none other than the Messiah promised by God. The mighty Word of God had become the mighty Deed of God. The shepherds returned to the fields, to herd their flocks. They had spoken with many, and their convictions remained unchanged. They went, glorifying and praising God. What would they have been singing? The songs of God. The Psalms. I can picture them singing Psalm 98: The Lord has made His salvation known.... He has remembered His love and His faithfulness to the house of Israel. How did that psalm begin again? Sing to the LORD a new song. No doubt the shepherds did just that, singing the new song they had learned from the angels. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom His favour rests. Luke ends the account very accurately and precisely. The joy of the shepherds had its source in this: all the things they had heard and seen.. were just as they had been told. Faith and joy is the proper reaction to God s Word when you discover it is completely correct. The response to the Christmas gospel is faith with some, unbelief with others. The shepherds believed. Mary believed. The people of Bethlehem, all who heard it, they were amazed. We learn that faith itself is a miracle. Even when it all makes sense, people, by nature, will not believe it. People have their own opinion how things should be. And if God does it differently, in a way no man imagined, there tends to be resistance. Angels who appear to shepherds? The Messiah born as a baby, wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger? We live some 2000 years later. We read the account, receive it as true to the facts. We know what happened to this child. How He would be chased out of the country to Egypt. How his birth would mean the death of many children in Bethlehem. How He would wander the hills of Galilee, proclaiming the Kingdom. How He was finally betrayed by one of His own followers and put to death by the Jews and Romans. And how He arose, ascended to heaven. How He poured out His Spirit upon His people and is expanding His Kingdom throughout the world. Will we believe? Will we join Mary and the shepherds in praising God for it is all just as God had said it would be? Or will it puzzle us, confuse us, and have us fight it so as to continue in the darkness of our fallen minds and hearts? Beloved, the Gospel is true. The apostle John testified to the things he saw. The apostle Peter tells us these things are not cleverly devised myths. Luke did careful investigation. What happened has been recorded under the guidance of the Spirit so that we might know it, so that we might believe. Believe the facts. Believe their significance. Follow the Christ with joy. For God s word is more than just a word. God s words are deeds. Amen.

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