Luke 2:8-15:  And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.  

               Christmas is an evocative time that produces powerful nostalgia and vivid childhood memories. I bet you can easily savor the sweet smells of gingerbread and hot apple cider. These comforting aromas trigger sentimental memories as they dance across your sugarplum imagination. 

               Remember the children’s plays and Christmas concerts. I clearly remember the excitement and stage fright of our Sunday school department Christmas play. It was third grade and I had to dress up like an angel, walk out on the platform in front of all the whole church and place a glittery, flannel graph angel at just the right place on the inky flannel sky and recite the message of the angel.

                “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” 

             If you thought your childhood’s Christmases were exciting, imagine what a stir the first Christmas created in heaven. All the holy angels were ecstatic, earnestly desiring to look into all that God had ordained. Peering down from the balcony of heaven the angels watched in eager anticipation at all the strange events unfolding on earth.  

              After 400 years of relative dormancy, angelic activity had really begun to stir. Gabriel had visited Zachariah, John the Baptist’s father, and told him that his son would prepare the way for the Lord. Six months later Gabriel went to the Virgin Mary to tell her that she would conceive a son by the Holy Spirit, who would be called the Son of the Highest. Then an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and commanded him not to put Mary away because that which was conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit. 

             Now, in the fullness of time, by the decree of God, a mighty celestial messenger was dispatched. The angels pressed their noses hard against the window of heaven, peering through the curtains of eternity, watching with eager anticipation as this mighty messenger made his way to herald God’s Word. To whom would God send this great messenger with such a great tidings? Was it to mighty Augustus Caesar, the Emperor of Rome? Was it to the House of Caiphas, the High Priest in Jerusalem? No! It was not to the rich, the powerful, or the elite. Rather, God sends his climatic Christmas tidings to a most lowly group in human society, mere shepherds.

               Imagine what it must have been like for the shepherds. There you are watching your sheep on what starts out as another boring night among the thousands of nights you’ve spent watching your flock. Huddled around a camp fire, hoping for an uneventful night, you‘ve prayed that God will protect your sheep from the vicious attacks of ravenous wolves.  You study the silvery stars on the vast canopy of darkness, in an attempt to fight off fatigue and drowsiness. Religion and politics are debated while swapping old familiar stories with your fellow outcasts.  

             Then suddenly, out of now where, there appears a blinding light.  You grab your trusty rod and jump to your feet ready to defend yourself. But the light is so intense your eyes throb as your pupils race to contract. You try to lift your hand to shield your vision, but you are paralyzed with shock. 

             You are immediately aware that you are in the presence of an awesome, immortal spiritual being. Fear and awe mixed with dread and foreboding overwhelms your consciousness. In the presence of such a holy being you become acutely aware you are a sinner, a law breaker, polluted and unholy and that you live in the midst of a sinful people. You feel as if you are going to die as your strength drains from your mortal body like water wrung from a sponge.  

             Then the angel, knowing your terror, commands, “Fear not!” The words seize your soul with a divine authority. A supernatural peace beyond human understanding floods over your soul like the waves of a warm, mighty ocean. 

             The angel patiently waits as your strength is renewed and your fears are relieved.  Then this resplendent celestial being begins to declare a strange heavenly message. The Christmas Angel comes bearing “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” 

              Heaven’s herald does not bear an ominous announcement of God’s judgment. Rather, he bears Good News from heaven! Now the fires of your imagination combust, engulfed in holy speculation. What can these “good tidings of great joy” be? What glorious good is Almighty God granting his rebellious, fallen creation? Is it the end of war, or poverty, or sickness? Is it liberation from Roman oppressors?  Why would God send this magnificent Holy Angel?

               “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”  

             Contrary to all their expectations, God commissioned his Christmas angel to come all the way from heaven, to a remote hillside, outside an obscure little town in an occupied country to group of insignificant shepherds, to do what? To make a birth announcement! And an odd one at that! 

             “That’s it?” the shepherds must have thought, “A baby born in Bethlehem lying in a feed trough?” There were thousands of babies being born that night, yet this one particular child of very humble birth was the rapt object of heaven’s singular attention. Why?

                All of heaven knew the magnitude and wondrous significance of the Christmas child, and they could not contain themselves! “Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host   praising God...” Myriads of angels came bursting through the invisible portals of heaven! A Holy Host of heaven’s choir assembles to raise their voices in an angelic anthem in response to God’s good tidings! 

             “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” The magnificent glory of this first Christmas was so overwhelming that it provoked the only appropriate heavenly response, the highest praises of the holy angels. The glorious descant of angel’s tongues soared above the melodious worship of God, echoing off the blackened firmament!  Good tidings of great Christmas joy has truly come! 

             What did the angels know about that first Christmas that we ought to know and which caused them to erupt into the highest praises of God! The angels’ song gives us the key to understanding the mystery of Christmas and our Christmas duties! 

             Why? The angels glorified God because they comprehended the consummate glory of God in the face of this little baby Jesus. Do you?  What glory? The angelic birth announcement gives us our clues. Jesus is called, “Savior and Christ and Lord.”

               Just one of these titles of Jesus is enough to evoke the endless praise of all creation, but in Jesus all the hopes and desires of God’s elect creatures are met! Dr. D. James Kennedy reminds us that “Christianity is preeminently and uniquely a singing and rejoicing religion. Though some other religions have their chants and their mournings and their doleful dirges, only Christianity produces a church that rejoices when it sings!”

               In December 2004, Voice of the Martyrs reported that Chinese officials were looking for a Christian Xiao Min. What was his great crime? He would not stop writing worship songs. Just like the hymns Paul and Silas sang behind the prison doors, you can’t stop God’s people from singing of the glory of God in Jesus Christ! 

             The Christmas angels sang because Jesus is the only Savior of the world. No other religion offers man a Savior, because there is no other Savior! Every other religion offers d.i.y. salvation, “do it yourself.” You must save yourself with your own alleged sincerity and supposed good works. But the Christmas Carol sung by the angels refutes this foolish idea.

               Unfortunately, according to a 2008 national survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 52 percent of all American Christians believe that non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life. While the impulse to be charitable towards other religions is understandable, any Christian who believes that you can be saved apart from faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has denied the very Lord he claims to trust.  To believe that all religions lead to heaven is to make the song of the Christmas angels into a lie. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior. No wonder the Host of Heaven cried, “Glory.”

                The Christmas angels sang because Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. As Messiah he is anointed by Holy Spirit without limit to fulfill the offices of prophet, priest, and King.  

             As the Christ, the anointed High Priest, Jesus is the only mediator between God & men. The bridge from earth to heaven is built from an old rugged, blood stained cross. Christian see your great High Priest, robed in common flesh, lifted up, spanning sin’s great divide.

               As the Christ, the anointed King, Jesus sits at God’s right hand. On his head are many crowns, and out of His mouth proceeds a sharp sword with which He strikes the nations. He rules with a rod of iron and treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And on His robe and on His thigh is written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.  

               No wonder George Fredrick Handel’s magnum opus, “Messiah” is so loved, because it gives expression to the glory of Jesus in His majesty as the Christ, the Anointed One of God. Again Dr. Kennedy asked, “Where else but in Christianity could you conceivably find a “Hallelujah” chorus? Nowhere! Absolutely nowhere. Only in Christ.” No wonder the angel’s Christmas anthem rang, “Glory to God.”

               The Christmas angels sang because Jesus is the Lord. In this baby, we are confronted with one of great mysteries of the faith- the incarnation! The Christmas angel dares to proclaim that Almighty God, the Everlasting and Infinite Creator of all things, has became a weak, mortal and finite human being in Jesus Christ. 

              Matthew tells us that God becoming a man was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet Isaiah seven hundred years prior, saying: "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us (Matt 1:22, 23).”

               The Apostle Paul makes it very plain- For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col.2:9).  And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh (1 Tim 3:16). According to Chalcedon Creed, the fifth century ecumenical confession, the church believes that Jesus is to be recognized in two natures;  perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood… truly God and truly man, yet without sin. This is an offence to the carnal mind, but is the profound mystery of the ages; God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself!

               But why the God/Man?  

               Anselm of Canterbury asked this question is his famous work “Cur Deus Homo.”  Why was it necessary for the Savior of mankind to be both fully human and fully divine? Anselm proved that by our sin against the infinite holiness of God, we are infinitely guilty and therefore are infinite debtors to God. In order to be saved, an infinite sacrifice is necessary to pay our infinite debt. Because only God is infinite, only God can provide such a sacrifice. Therefore if we are to be saved, God must become a man to be our Savior. Because Jesus was divine, he was perfectly innocent and His blood infinitely powerful. Only by Christ’s perfect, sinless human life and his sacrificial, death as our substitute, has the just demands of the Living, Holy God been satisfied.

               Charles Hadden Spurgeon reminds us that “God's work was sublimely simple. Here was ‘The Word made flesh’ to dwell among us…Mysterious, yet the greatest simplicity that was ever spoken to human ears, and seen by mortal eyes.” 

               We get a hint of the incarnation in the life of the California-born zoologist Dian Fossey. The mighty African gorilla in Rwanda had become an endangered species because of the senseless slaughter by poachers. So Dian Fossey left her home in California and lived for 18 years among these fierce creatures, studying them closely. Gradually the gorillas accepted and trusted her. From 1967 until 1985 she carried on her work. In 1985 Dain was murdered, evidently at the knife of a poacher from whom Dian Fossey had tried to protect her animal friends.

                 It is a long way from California to the jungles of Africa, but it is much farther from the throne of God to a stable in Bethlehem. Yet Christ made that journey in order to redeem the very race who would eventually put him to death!  No wonder the seraphim echo the scintillating song, “Glory to God in the highest!”

               Have you ever really sung “the Gloria” from your heart? Do you really “get” Christmas? Only those who know Jesus as their Savior, Messiah and Lord can truly sing angels song! Do you know him? Have you despaired of all your attempts to save yourself by your own goodness? Turn from your sin today and put your faith and trust on Jesus alone and he will save and keep you.

               Christian, you were redeemed from death so that you might, with word and deed, express your gratitude to God. Are you truly grateful this Christmas? In spite of whatever circumstance you find yourself in today, we sing the joyful Christmas song!  Let us live with grateful hearts for God’s unspeakable gift. 

             At Christmas we remember the heartwarming events of 1914 during World War I. On Christmas Eve, German troops fighting the British in Belgium began decorating the area around their trenches for Christmas. They placed candles on trees began singing Christmas carols, most notably Silent Night. The British troops in the trenches across from them quickly responded by singing carols of their own. Soon they were shouting Christmas greetings to each other.

                Then there were calls for visits across the "No Man's Land" where small gifts were exchanged. For the first time the artillery experienced a silent night.  The truce spread to other areas of the lines, and soon soccer matches broke out between the opposing forces. In many sectors, the truce lasted through Christmas night, but in some areas, it continued until New Year's Day.

               We call this the Christmas Truce. There are many songs and poems and even movies about how the spirit of Christmas stopped a World War, if only for a moment. More than any other time of year Christmas reminds us of our deep desire for peace.

               We see this in the angels’ Christmas song. The focus shifts from the glory of God in the heavens to the result of God’s divine activity, “peace on earth!”            

             It is very surprising in many respects that Jesus brings His peace to the whole earth. Up until this time none except a tiny remnant in Israel knew the peace or shalom of God. All the gentile nations languished as we sing, in “sin and error pining.” In the advent of Christ the cruel spiritual bondage and monopoly of Satan over the gentile world was broken. The Christmas baby brings peace to all the elect! Jews and gentiles from every tongue, tribe, people and nation, whosoever will call on the name of the Lord, shall be saved. 

             But the peace that Jesus brings is not the peace of the world. Jesus said, Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:27). These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world (John 16:33).

               God made the difference between the peace of Christ, the Pax Christi, and the world’s peace very plain. In the wisdom of God, Jesus was born in the midst of a season of worldly peace called the Pax Romana- the peace of Rome. This was a 200 year period of relative calm in the Roman Empire. But even though there was relative earthly peace, outside of Jesus Christ there was no spiritual peace. When we stop to celebrate the birth of Christ we realize true peace was born at Christmas!

               God is offering you Pax Christi, the peace of Christ, a Christmas truce. The war between God and man that started in the Garden of Eden has been won by our glorious Christ who went out conquering and to conquer. Our triumphant, risen Christ is the Prince of Peace, the Czar of Shalom. God offers you real, spiritual and everlasting peace in Jesus Christ, not just one day of the year, but every day and for all eternity. 

             Christian, do you have on your Christmas shoes? This Christmas season remember, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things (Romans 10:1)!” This is a perfect time to share the good tidings of the Christmas Gospel of peace on earth!  

              The great glory of Christmas is the good will of God demonstrated in Jesus Christ towards sinners. God’s favor towards man is not because of some goodness in man. Rather God sets his good will on his people in spite of their ill will towards him. The sovereign favor of God is the only source from which our peace is derived. Stephan Brown asked, “Did you ever stop to think that the manger is a hug from a God you thought was a policeman?”

       Once a young boy came to a missionary's side and said, "I love you and I want you to have this. He pulled from a straw basket the most beautiful shell the missionary had ever seen. As she admired its beauty, she recognized it as a special shell only found on the far side of the island, a half day's walk from the village. When she confronted the boy with this, he smiled and said, "Long walk part of gift."

        Crucial to everything we believe as Christians is this truth... that God loved the world so much that he made that long walk to come from where He is to where we are. It’s the message of God’s Christmas favor and love of which our sin weary hearts never tire of hearing and which this world desperately needs to hear.    

              When famed author Robert Louis Stevenson retired to the Samoan Islands because of his health, he became to the natives of that island a kind of benefactor. Stevenson was concerned that there was only a path leading from the harbor of his island over which his new friends must walk in order to bring provisions to the interior.  With his own money and personal efforts, Stevenson had a good road constructed for his people.  In gratitude the Samoans called it, "the road of a loving heart." At Christmas God the Father sent his only Son, at His own expense and effort to pave the way of love all the way to heaven for all whosoever will repent of their sin and humbly follow him. Jesus is that Way!

                This is why Christmas brings God the highest praise from the Heavenly Host. God is most glorified in His gracious redemption of sinners! It is no wonder that the exalted words of the Original Christmas Carol are still gladly sang today. “Glory to God in the Highest, peace on earth and good will towards men!”