Christmas is the affirmation that the well of God's mercy is infinite.
Good morning. Merry Christmas. Grace and peace to you all from God our Father and The Lord Jesus Christ. I am wishing you “the generous overflow of the love of God the Father” and “a state of wholeness with God with no deficiency.” Grace and peace.
This morning we are going to celebrate the birth of our savior by looking at a passage from the Gospel according to Luke. We are looking at Luke Chapter 2 verses 8-14.
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:8-14 NIV).
For the past several weeks in the EM we have been celebrating the season of Advent. Advent is a time at the beginning of the church calendar that reminds us of our need for a savior. It employs the symbolism of waiting in darkness to recall the time between the sin of Adam and Eve and the coming of Jesus. It recalls the depth of our depravity and brings to mind the helplessness and the hopelessness of humanity. But it also reminds us that from the time there was a need for salvation God had a plan for salvation.
Celebrating Advent reminds us that God has made that plan real in the person of Jesus Christ. And so we are today celebrating the greatest gift in all creation. Imagine what it must have been like for these shepherds. I think it is significant that the first announcement of the "Good News" (the gospel) was to them. Shepherds were among the lowest people in the ancient world. They didn't smell very good. Their sheep would destroy pasture land, so people didn't want them on their property. And they were thought of as dangerous and probably dishonest. In many ways the people of the ancient Near East probably thought the same about shepherds as some in our society do about so-called illegal immigrants, or homeless street people.
Now in the story we read today we see these shepherds out in the fields and waiting in darkness. The lowest of the low, lost and outcast, shivering in the cold darkness. And all of a sudden there is a great light, an angel of The Lord announcing "Good News." And let's be clear that we’re not just talking about "good news" like "Good news, I just got a new car!" or, "Good news, I just got a raise!" or even "Good news! I just won the lottery!"
The word used here signifies the announcement of a great victory by an emperor or military commander. So it's not like "good news," it's more like "unbelievably great proclamation of a major victory." And hearing it would have brought on great joy and celebration the these shepherds.
In this story we see this great news being proclaimed to a bunch of outcasts and misfits. And that by itself ought to be comforting to us. Because the Bible, and our experience, makes it clear that, left to our own devices, we too are a bunch of outcasts and misfits. The announcement the angels made was not to the high and mighty, but to the poor, the lonely, the downtrodden, people who were waiting in darkness, maybe not even knowing there would be a light, certainly not expecting that a light would come to them. And it was made to us, too, who also have waited in darkness, with our only hope being the Advent of a divine savior.
Joy, and Peace
Well, what is this great news? "Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord." (Luke 2:11 NIV). You will find him in the lowest of the lowly places, the angel said. You will find him in a barn, outcast like you.
The people of Israel had waited centuries for the Messiah. Pretty much everyone believed that God was going to send his Chosen One to make everything right, but nobody really knew how it was going to happen. The scriptures were not clear. Many people expected a great warrior king like David. The shepherds who heard the good news must have been surprised and puzzled to learn that the Messiah had come in the form of the weakest of the weak. But they believed it. Luke tells us that they went to Bethlehem to see if it was really true, and finding that it was true, they immediately told everyone they knew about the good news. And those who heard it were amazed.
Now the scripture tells us that these angels were announcing peace to the earth. I want to just focus briefly on what that means. We have an idea of peace but I think our idea is a little different from what the shepherds or other Jewish people of first century would have heard. When we think of peace, we usually think of the absence of conflict. We are at peace if we are not at war. We are at peace if we are not arguing.
But for the people of the ancient Near East the word would have had a much richer meaning. In the Hebrew language the word and the concept Luke is getting at is “Shalom.” You probably know that a common greeting among Jewish people even now is “Shalom.”
Shalom does mean the absence of conflict, but it also means much more. In the Hebrew language Shalom can be both a verb and a noun. When we think of peace, we think of it as a noun, as a state of being. Hebrew speakers think of it this way too, but there is also an action associated with it.
God's creation was an act of shalom. The world was created in shalom. God created Adam and Eve to live in the Garden of Eden in perfect joyful communion with him. There was no sadness, no pain, no sickness, no suffering. They had no troubles and no need for anything. So that is why one definition of Shalom is “a state of wholeness with God with no deficiency.”
And it also refers to relations between people. So, for example, if two neighbors lived at peace with each other, we could say that they lived in a state of shalom. But if one of the neighbors did something that harmed the other, then that peace would be broken. In order to restore it, the guilty neighbor would have to do some act of restitution. He could pay for the damages, and that would be an act of shalom that wold restore the peace between the two called shalom.
When the angels announced "peace" on the earth, they were announcing both things. God had created the world in shalom. Adam and Eve broke that shalom by disobedience, bringing about all of the brokenness and misery of the world. The problem that Adam and Eve and their descendants, and that includes us, had and have is that we are incapable of repairing what is broken. We do not have enough money to pay for the damages. And that means that a state of conflict and broken relations exists between God and the people that people cannot fix. It was upon them to fix it, because they had broken it, but they could not. And so God and man were in a state of war that could not end.
But because of his great love for us, God himself devised a way to pay the debt. He sent his own son, who was the only one wealthy enough to pay the price, to pay it for us. Christmas is an affirmation that the well of God's mercy is infinite. God himself paid the price that restored the relationship between God and man. God himself did the action of shalom that restored the peace of Shalom. In the words of the ancient hymn, "God and sinners reconciled."
In Christ
Now I'm not going to get into a long theological discussion here but I have to tell you that our old lives were so damaged that the only way we could be restored was by receiving new lives. We had to be born again. And when we were born again, we were born into Christ. The apostle Paul writes to the church at Galatia, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2:20 ESV). Our life is in Christ.
And if we are reborn into the life of Christ, we are also born into the work of Christ. Christ's work is a mission of shalom. It is a mission to restore our broken world. We, the church, as the Body of Christ, are now entrusted with that mission. It is upon us who are "in Christ" to continue Jesus’ work of restoring the peace between God and man. God chose us to be the coworkers of Jesus in the work of shalom.
How do we do that? In the same way Jesus does it: through self-sacrificing love. As Jesus did, we must be willing to give up ourselves for the benefit of others. Jesus tells us, "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35 ESV). So the birth of Christ binds us to love as Jesus loves.
Let us remember this Christmas Day the great light that burst forth in the darkness and announced the magnificent good news of Jesus’ birth so long ago, the news of peace on earth to the lowest of the low. Let us be grateful for the work of Jesus Christ that gave us new life in “a state of wholeness with God with no deficiency.” And let us identify in the work of Christ our own calling to announce peace on earth, by living lives that reflect his light to everyone.
Merry Christmas. Shalom
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Grace and Peace.
Rock Presbyterian Church 6910B Miramar Rd. Second Floor, San Diego 92121. Email: rockpresbyterian@gmail.com. Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/SDRockPresbyterianChurch. Telephone: 760-271-7285
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