Gloria In Excelsis Deo: The Song of the Angels

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And tonight's readings are a reading from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, verses 2-20, and Paul's letter to Titus, chapter 3, verses 3-6.

Luke 2:2–20 Titus 3:3–6

A reading from the Gospel according to Luke.

In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.

This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.

And everyone went to their own towns to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.

He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him, and was expecting a child.

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.

She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

But the angel said to them, do not be afraid.

I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people.

Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you.

He is the Messiah, the Lord.

This will be a sign to you.

You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Suddenly, a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

Glory to God in the highest.

Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests.

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another,

Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby, who was lying in the manger.

When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child,

and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen,

which were just as they had been told.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

And the New Testament lesson, a reading from Paul's letter to Titus.

At one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.

We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

But when the kindness and love of God, our Savior appeared, he saved us,

not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,

whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ, our Savior,

so that, having been justified by his grace,

we might become heirs, having the hope of eternal life.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Isn't it great to have a string quartet here tonight?

I'm going to relieve them of feeling like they need to preach with me, though,

so thank you for that.

Well, Merry Christmas to you all, and a warm welcome to our Christchurch family,

and especially a warm welcome to those of you who come with your family and friends,

maybe here from out of town or visiting Christchurch for the first time.

We are so, so glad that you're here tonight.

And, you know, Christmas Eve is always a bit of a mixed crowd, spiritually speaking.

Typically, about half of our church is out of town,

traveling to other places to celebrate with their people,

and their seats in the pews are filled with folks who are from all different kind of experiences and backgrounds,

religious, non-religious,

people who know bits and pieces about the historic Christian faith,

and people who know nothing whatsoever.

However, perhaps even some of you here tonight would say,

you know, I don't even know if God exists.

I'm not even sure if we can have our ultimate questions answered.

And wherever you're coming from tonight,

we just want you to know we're delighted that you're here.

And I want to begin by just pointing out a very strange detail in that story we just heard read.

And just to say that if I were writing the Christmas story,

I'm not sure I would have written it as it stands.

For example, what's up with the shepherds?

You know, could God not have found better characters to write into a story?

I mean, why didn't God choose other people to receive the news of the birth of His Son?

Think of how much better the story would have been if God had sent news to the Roman Emperor Augustus,

or to Herod the Great, or the high priest in Jerusalem.

Why did God not go to the halls of power, to people sitting on thrones,

you know, to celebrities and influencers and elites,

the high and mighty people who were rich and famous?

Instead, the glorious presence and power of the Lord appears not only in this vulnerable baby in this lowly manger,

but it appears in this field with unlikely and lowly shepherds.

Think about that.

The most stupendous news that the world has ever heard is given to these simple, ordinary people,

a bunch of nobodies on the margins of society,

people who are just going about their everyday business with no expectation whatsoever

that anything out of the ordinary was going to happen that night.

They were taken completely by surprise.

It's a strange detail to me.

And so, for the next few moments, I want to just invite you into the experience of these shepherds

to hear what they heard with their ears and see what they saw with their eyes.

Know what they knew in their minds.

Feel what they felt in their hearts.

And what I want to invite all of us to do tonight is just to listen to the song of the angels

and to go through a process of investigation and to open our hearts to sharing and singing.

Okay, three things.

Listen to the song of the angels.

Go through a process of investigation.

And open our hearts to sharing and singing.

So, first of all, let's listen to the song of the angels.

Verse 9 in our story tells us that an angel of the Lord appeared to them

and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified.

You know, many people seek spiritual experiences, transcendent experiences,

in order to get above themselves and beyond themselves.

And they may not be aware of what might happen when they seek that, right?

Because when the Almighty shows up, when the Holy penetrates your life,

when the eternal light of God comes into your darkness,

the first thing you feel is not a thrill of hope, right?

You feel dread.

You feel terrified.

Like, am I going to die?

Why?

And every time in the Bible a messenger from heaven is sent from God to speak,

what do they say to human beings?

Fear not.

Do not be afraid.

And so in our story in verse 10, it says,

the angel said to them,

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 Savior has been born to you.

He is the Messiah, the Lord.

And the angel sums up the Christmas message in those three little words.

He's Savior, Messiah, and Lord.

The one born to you is the Lord.

That's the name of the God of Israel.

I am who I am.

And that name is Yahweh for short.

And the angel says,

Jesus is the embodiment of Yahweh, the Lord.

Secondly, the one born to you is the Messiah or the Christ.

And that's not his last name.

It's not Jesus, Mr. Christ.

Messiah is his title.

It's his office.

It means that he's God's chosen and anointed king.

And thirdly, this one born to you is the Lord.

He's the Messiah, and he's the Savior,

which is good and joyful news.

It says that God desires to save the human race from itself.

And, of course, the bad news is that we're the kind of species living in the kind of world that needs saving.

Right?

A saving that we cannot do for ourselves.

A saving that all of our money and technology,

all of our technology,

our education,

our government,

just simply cannot affect.

When I think about this need for being saved,

I think about my favorite fictional Christmas character,

which is the Grinch.

Right?

And I have a Grinch mug at home,

which has the Grinch quoting.

He says,

I'm not arguing.

I'm just explaining why I'm right.

And I love this guy.

In fact, you may remember in the original film in the 1960s,

there was a great song called,

You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.

And one of the stanzas in that song says,

You're a rotter, Mr. Grinch.

You're the king of sinful sots.

Your heart's a dead tomato splotched with moldy purple spots, Mr. Grinch.

Your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing

with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable

mangled up and tangled up knots.

Now, I don't know about you,

but Dr. Seuss, to me, is a great theologian.

He's an incredible anthropologist.

And if we're honest,

all of us have hearts tonight

that are about two sizes too small,

at least.

And we have this inner Grinch,

if we're honest with ourselves,

we have this inner Grinch

that unleashes all sorts of misery

on the people around us,

maybe even upon,

and especially upon ourselves.

Right?

We know better than God how to run our lives.

We would be better off if we were just independent from God.

We're in a war not against Whoville.

We're in a war against God himself.

We're in a war against God.

We're in a war against God.

We're in a war against God.

We're in a war against God.

And because of that,

we're in the grip of sin and death.

We're living under condemnation and judgment and wrath.

And that's like the one doctrine of Christianity

that we could almost prove from this morning's newspaper.

But the good news of great joy

is that God has sent a Savior.

That God won't allow us to be stuck

in the misery of our Grinchiness and our Grinchitude.

That God announces to us the best news

that's ever been told to planet Earth,

that the one born to you is Savior, Messiah, and Lord.

And the great irony of this story

is that the way God announces this message

is he sends a heavenly army of angelic warriors

not to destroy humanity,

which God would have been right and completely just to do,

but he sends this heavenly army of angelic warriors

to sing to us the first Christmas carol

and to offer us God's terms of peace.

And here it is in verse 13.

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host

appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

glory to God in the highest heaven

and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.

Their message is that we as human beings,

our deepest need is not political

or sociological or economic

to achieve a kind of outward interpersonal peace

between individuals or groups of people.

They tell us that our deepest problem

is not biological or mental or psychological

to achieve a kind of inward intrapersonal peace,

though of course we're desperate for both forms of peace,

given the deep disharmonies that we find within our own souls

and out in the world between people groups.

But what they tell us is what we most need

is a saving and reconciling peace with God,

not peace out in the world or peace in our hearts,

but peace up here with God.

Peace between the glorious maker and judge of all

and grinchy sinners like me and like you.

And this peace, you notice,

is offered to all people of every culture,

every race, every nation.

All humanity here is invited to join in heaven's song

about this one born Savior Christ and Lord,

this one who's given authority to accomplish salvation

and to bring peace with God.

But while this is a universal announcement

for all peoples at all times and in all places,

we also notice that it's only effective

for those on whom God's favor rests,

on whom God's grace has come to rest.

Will God give peace to everyone?

Well, if you're indifferent to God,

if you're opposed to God,

why would you get the peace that He brings?

No, it's only as we surrender,

it's only as we accept God's terms of peace

that we come to enjoy the incredible shalom

that He offers us both now in this life

and in the age to come.

And so tonight I want us to listen very closely

to the song that the angels are singing to us

and see if we really understand

what it is they're saying.

But I want us to not only listen

to the song of the angels,

I'd also like for us to go through a process

of investigation,

to go through a process of investigation.

These unlikely and lowly shepherds,

they hear this first and oldest Christmas carol,

the original Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

And then what do they do?

How do they respond?

Because the angels are gone as quickly

and unexpectedly as they came

and when the song was over,

the shepherds found themselves in the silence

and then in the darkness again.

And so what now?

What should we do now?

They must surely have wondered

what they just experienced.

And then we pick up in verse 15,

it says,

when the angels had left them

and gone into heaven,

the shepherds said to one another,

let's go to Bethlehem

and see this thing that has happened

which the Lord has told us about.

They say,

let's go through a process of investigation.

Let's go and see for ourselves

whether or not this thing is true.

They neither laughed off the experience

as a hallucination or a dream

nor did they accept it without investigation.

They were not content with mere hearsay

but they said,

let's go find out the truth for ourselves.

And this is important tonight

because I think some of you might be skeptical

of this Christmas story.

Perhaps you're here and you're inclined

not to trust naive,

empty-headed,

religious credulity.

And if that's you,

I am with you.

And I absolutely respect that.

But the antidote to naive,

empty-headed,

religious credulity

is not cynical,

unstudied,

secular incredulity.

Rather,

I want to suggest to you

that the most intellectually

credible position you could take

is to engage in an open-minded,

unprejudiced inquiry,

to go and gather

the adequate primary source evidence

and then base your conclusions

on that evidence

without depending on hearsay

or second-hand opinions

from other people.

For example,

you might be socialized

and culturally conditioned

to read this supernatural story

about angels

and a virgin birth

and this God

born as a human baby.

And when that story hits

the plausibility structures

in your mind,

when it hits the dominant paradigm

of your brain,

you say,

ah,

I see what's going on.

We're talking about a legend.

This is a myth.

It's a fable.

It's a made-up story

with symbolic spiritual meaning.

But if you say that,

that just means that

your plausibility structures

and the paradigm in your mind

is causing you

to misunderstand

what you're reading.

It's causing you

to misunderstand the genre

because when you examine

the evidence,

Luke does not begin

his story like a fairy tale

and say,

once upon a time.

Right?

Nor does he begin

his story saying,

a long time ago

in a galaxy

far, far away.

Indicating that

you are now reading

a mythological

Jungian hero story

about an unending conflict

between the dark side

and the true force.

Right?

This isn't once upon a time.

It's not a long time ago

in a galaxy

far, far away.

How does Luke,

this meticulous doctor,

this scrupulous historian,

write his story?

He says in verse 1,

in those days,

Caesar Augustus

issued a decree

that a census

should be taken

of the entire Roman world.

This was the first census

that took place

while Quirinius

was governor

of Syria.

He says,

this is history.

This is,

this happened.

It happened

under the rule

of the grand nephew

of Julius Caesar,

Caesar Augustus.

And you can go

look at all the evidence

about it.

And what I want to invite

some of you to do tonight

is just to engage

in the primary source material,

maybe for the first time

in your lives.

And if you do that,

if you read the Gospels,

you'll find that

this one who's born,

he makes,

he grows up, right?

And he makes

some astonishing claims.

He says stuff like,

only I know God the Father.

He says things like,

I alone have the authority

to forgive sins

and to do what only God can do.

He says,

I'm going to come back

at the end of history

and I'm going to sit

on my throne in glory

and I'm going to gather

all the nations before me

and I'm going to judge

all the earth

because I hold

your eternal destiny

in my hands.

What?

Who says that?

Who in history

has ever said these things?

And where does he get,

where does he get off?

Not to mention

all the other things

you'll find

about eyewitness testimonies

that after his

ghastly crucifixion

to bear the sins

of the world

that he was seen

raised from the dead

and alive again.

You see,

if you engage

with this story

as it's written,

not as legend

but as history,

you will have to

confront the facts

that either

this one who was born

became a dangerous madman

or he became

a pitiful lunatic

or he's the Lord

and he's telling us

the truest truths

of the universe.

And what I want you to do

is go on that process

of investigation

for yourself

to say what the shepherds

said to themselves.

Let's go

and let's see this thing

and whether or not

it really happened.

And I'd encourage you

to just read the gospel.

Read the gospel of Luke.

You can read a chapter

a day over the next

24 days

and be done

in mid-January.

And I'd encourage you also,

I have two books

to recommend

for your 12 days

of Christmas reading.

One is from

a professor

at the University of Cambridge,

Richard Baucom.

This is a very short book

and it's incredibly cheap.

You could probably order it

and have it at your house

tonight, I bet.

It's called

Jesus,

A Very Short Introduction.

It's phenomenal.

And this is by

Tom Wright,

N.T. Wright,

the original Jesus,

the life and vision

of a revolutionary.

He teaches at the

University of Oxford

and I commend

these trustworthy historians

to your reading.

But as we close,

I want us to not only

listen to the song

of the angels

and go through

a process of investigation,

but I'd also like

to encourage us

to open our hearts

to sharing

and singing.

To open our hearts

to sharing

and singing.

Because what did

the shepherds find?

Did they,

did they see

what their eyes

thought they would see?

Did they,

did they see

what they heard

with their ears?

We read in verse 16,

so the shepherds

hurried off

and they found

Mary and Joseph

and the baby

who was lying

in the manger.

They showed up

and they found

the King of Heaven

as a powerless

baby

in this lowly manger.

They showed up

and they found

the light of the world

descended down

into the darkness.

They found

the giver of life

born to die,

born to come

into the depths

of all of our

grinchiness

and God forsakenness.

What they found

when they arrived

was the Savior,

the Messiah,

the Lord

in the person of Jesus.

And what did they do?

What did they do

when they saw

God in the flesh?

When they saw

the embodiment

of beauty

and truth

and goodness?

It says in verse 17

that when they had seen Him,

they spread the word

concerning what

had been told them

about this child

and all who heard it

were amazed

at what the shepherd

said to them.

You know,

perhaps you've met

Christians

who are irrepressibly

and perhaps even

at times

annoyingly joyful.

You ever met

these people?

And they can't

help themselves,

right?

They can't help

but to share

their joy

with others.

Maybe you're even

here tonight

because a family member

or a friend

just wouldn't stop

pestering you

and bothering you

to join them

for Christmas Eve

and your present

to them

is just to come

and also your hope

is that they'll

stop asking you

and stop bothering you.

But I want to encourage you,

please don't be

too hard on them

because they're just

doing what the shepherds

did.

Right?

The shepherds,

they just can't keep

the good news

to themselves.

They want other people

to know,

they want their family,

their friends,

their neighbors,

their co-workers,

they want the whole world

to know

that what they heard

and what they saw

is such good

and such joyful news.

They just can't help

but share it.

And not only do they

want to share it,

but they also want

to sing about it.

It says in verse 20

that the shepherds

returned glorifying

and praising God

for all the things

they had heard

and seen

which were just

as they had been told.

You see,

they shared

and they sang.

They witnessed

and they worshipped.

They proclaimed

and they praised.

They just could not

contain themselves.

Their souls were

bursting with joy

that had to be shared

and had to be sung.

Now,

I want you to know

that those shepherds

the very next day

had to go back

to work.

They had to go back

to their ordinary

everyday lives.

They returned

to their fields

and their homes.

They returned

to their vocations

and their relationships.

But they were different

and they were changed.

They went back

to their old job

but with a new spirit.

They went back

to their old family,

perhaps dysfunctional families

like ours,

but they went back

with a new heart.

Meeting the Savior,

the Messiah,

the Lord,

in the person of Jesus

changed them profoundly.

And so,

for the rest of their lives,

they wanted simply

to worship God

along with that army

of angelic warriors

making as their own anthem

glory to God

in the highest heaven.

And so, dear friends,

let's follow the shepherds

this Christmas.

As we enter into this

12-day feast of Christmas,

let's also listen

to the song of the angels.

Let's also go through

a process of investigation.

And upon discovering Jesus,

upon encountering

this good news

of great joy for ourselves,

let's also open our hearts

to sharing and singing,

to witnessing and worshiping,

to proclaiming and praising.

Friends, let's praise

this Jesus tonight even

from a glad and a full heart.

Let's celebrate His birth

over these next few weeks

with everything that we have

to give Him.

And let's live as people

who have the glory

of the Lord shining on us.

As people who've been saved,

actually, from our grinchiness.

As people who have been saved

into peace with God.

As people who just can't

contain their joy.

Because what they realize

is that God's favor

and God's grace

is resting on us.

So friends,

Merry Christmas.

And I want to invite you now

just to take a moment

in the quiet of this night

to bow your heads

and just close your eyes

and ask God

to draw near to you.

Ask Him to apply

His word to your heart.

And we'll sing together

in just a moment.

Amen.

See you next time.

Thank you.

Bye.