1 Luke 2:15-21 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. 21 After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
2 "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." This thing that has taken place the shepherds knew that this baby was the promised Messiah, because the angel had told them. But even they didn t realise that this Baby, lying in a manger, was God incarnate. And that s the real wonder that we re celebrating, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus we re celebrating what is called the incarnation. We hear so often the familiar scriptures, that it s easy to lose sight of what an amazing event that was. Who was Jesus, before the incarnation? We read that Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. (Philippeans 2:6) The Bible says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This is the being who created, not just the whole earth, but the whole of the universe. It s difficult to really envisage what that means, or just how big that is. We think the earth is huge. If we wanted to make a scale model of the earth and the sun, and we made the earth a very small pea at the back of the church hall, the sun would be a bright glowing globe two feet across, by the altar. Light travels at 186,000 mph. The sun is far enough from the earth that light takes over eight minutes to get here from the sun. In Him all things were made. That s almost unimaginably huge. And yet our sun is only one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and our galaxy is so huge that is takes light 100,000 years to get from one side to the other. To put it another way, if a new star started shining on the other side of the galaxy when the first humans walked the earth, its light will start to reach us about now. Our galaxy is unimaginably huge. by him all things were created. I want to show you now what is to me one of the most profoundly thought provoking pictures I ve ever seen. This picture is taken from the Hubble telescope it s part of what is called the Hubble deep space field. Each of the areas of light you can see there is not a star but a GALAXY the size of our galaxy. In Him all things were made.
3 Of course, that s not the whole of our night sky. So how big a part of the night sky is that? If we hold a1p piece at arms length and look up at it we will cover a part of the sky roughly equal to the size of the moon. This photo covers a piece of the night sky roughly equal to THE HEAD OF A PIN at arms length. And every pinhead-sized piece of the night sky is the same. The universe is unbelievably huge. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible all things were created by him and for him. (Colossians 1:16) He, who created all of this, chose to be born here, to become human, in a stable in Bethlehem. So WHY did He choose to come? We Christians, or Disciples of Christ, call Him Saviour so what did He come to save us from? First, He came to save us from the consequence of our sin. He came to pay the price or the penalty for our sins, on the cross. We re mostly very familiar with this many of us have heard this teaching since we were children. And yet, He came to save us from far more than that. He came to save us, not just from the consequences, but also from the POWER of sin. Today is the best day in the whole of the year to talk about the POWER of sin. Why? Because today is New Year s Day! Today is the day when many make New Years Resolutions. What resolutions did you make last year? How many were you still keeping by the end of February? I saw an advert recently for a new book written by American psychologist Kelly McGonigal, about how individuals can become more in control of their life. There are hundreds of books like that so-called self help books. And there are people who buy another and yet another self-help book because the ones they already have didn t work. Someone once said that a human being only has one freedom the freedom to choose his or her master.
4 So on the 1 st January each year, people who are slaves to anger, or slaves to envy, or slaves to some other sin, screw up their willpower, and resolve that this year will be different. And such is the power of sin that by the end of February, they ve fallen back under the power of that which they know is wrong, because they were seeking to be master of their own lives, and none of us has that choice. We only have the choice to choose our master. Some choose to serve money, or social status, or sexual conquest, or material possessions, or career success. To find out what master a person is really serving, you don t even need to ask them you just need to look at that person s actions and life. There are some really bad masters out there! Many of my psychotherapy clients have been serving them for years. Those bad masters promise, but they don t deliver. Material possessions promise, in advert after advert, to bring happiness. And they don t deliver. Career success and social status promise to bring self esteem or self worth and they don t deliver either. There was once a man in the USA who was what they call a survivalist. There s lots of them out there. His master, the cause he was living for, was his own survival. He had a functioning nuclear fallout bunker in his back yard, complete with oxygen and water and food supply to last for ages, and firearms to ward off thieves he d done everything a person could possibly do to safeguard his own survival. He choked to death on a boiled sweet. So many masters or lords we can choose to serve, to live our lives for. The Bible says, Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? And Jesus, by whom all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, came to us to save us from the POWER of sin He came to be our Saviour and our LORD. So when he came to be Saviour and LORD, who did He come FOR? Ordinary people like those shepherds in our reading this evening. In Jewish society, shepherds were about as low status as you can get the only people below them in status were the lepers. Shepherds were so looked down on by the rest, they were not even allowed to give testimony in court as witnesses. The creator of the universe came for ordinary people like the shepherds the creator of the universe came for you personally.
5 So let s exchange all those New Year s resolutions about getting in control of life for a new determination, in this New Year, to deeply and joyfully surrender every aspect of our lives to Jesus, the one we call Saviour and LORD. Let s open our lives and our hearts anew to seeking His guidance, as we each follow His plan for our lives.