Christmas Eve: Glory and Peace (Luke 2:1-20)

Hello, friends, this is Pastor Creighton.

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Heavenly Father, grant us by faith to come and endure your Son, our Savior Jesus.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Friends, every year around this time, a familiar conversation gets renewed.

It's a conversation I hear in coffee shops, it's a conversation I see in Hallmark movies.

What is the meaning of Christmas?

What makes it so significant?

Well, I turned to the one of the greatest authorities I know, Google, and I came across a post on social media I felt particularly drawn to.

One person writes, I feel like this holiday season it's important to remind people of the real meaning of Christmas.

Ghosts terrorizing rich people in the middle of the night until they agree to pay their employees more money.

And maybe it's because I read a Christmas carol for the first time last year that I felt particularly drawn to that one.

But what's the meaning of Christmas?

Here we are at church.

It's the birth of Jesus.

Shortest sermon ever, right?

Sorry, I'm not going to end it there.

We'd be right to say it's the birth of Jesus.

And that's reflexively my response when I start to ponder this question for myself.

But I guess I got to thinking, what is it about his birth?

I mean, I'll submit, and I think safely so, that cute and snugly babies get born every day.

And it's worth celebrating the birth of every new life.

But is it the birth of Jesus?

What is it about Jesus that we celebrate that gives Christmas its significance?

That fills it with meaning and fills us with hope.

See, if we only go so far as to say, well, Jesus was born, I worry that we may miss what makes Christmas so significant, what gives Christmas its true meaning and promises us hope.

See, for those with faith to receive God's word, we know that the meaning of Christmas is found in the divine glory and peace that God proclaims through his angels at that first Christmas.

In other words, what makes Christmas so significant is God's glory and peace brought to us by this Christmas child.

See, this child's birth is the occasion for God's highest glory, for peace on earth.

So I want to suggest that if we want to grasp what makes Christmas so significant this year and every other, we must grasp with one hand God's glory and peace on earth in the other.

This was the good news of great joy that was first announced, and it remains so nearly 2,000 years later for those gathered even here at New Song Church.

So my prayer for you is that through God's word and Holy Spirit, you and I both may catch for ourselves even a glimpse of that same glory and peace announced by the angels on the first Christmas, and that we may journey by faith to meet the Christ child and walk away like the shepherds, glorifying and praising God.

So here we are in Luke chapter two.

What's going on?

In verses one to seven, we see God's providence at work in big ways, with world governments and with important people like Canarius, and in small family matters, bringing about Mary and Joseph through a cross-country trek, all to bring about his promise that we read in Isaiah 9, especially in verse 6, to bring about a Prince of Peace, a promised Savior child, in the right way, in the right place, and at the right time.

See, God's sovereign saving power is moving all of history towards its goal in Christ.

And now it's in verses 8 to 20 that I want us to zoom in on.

In verses 8 to 20, God's sovereign saving purpose has been announced, and we meet two characters.

We meet the shepherds, probably young men, lower working class, protecting their family and these village assets, the sheep, on an otherwise normal night shift.

These are not movers and shakers of society.

They are not social media influencers.

Perhaps like us, they mostly feel overlooked and ordinary.

And while otherwise important people like Quinarius go about changing the world, they go about the business of getting by.

But we also meet angels.

Despite the images that, say, Philadelphia cream cheese gives us, angels are God's messengers.

They're sent on missions, sent from God's glorious presence in heaven to proclaim his word to his people.

And that's exactly what the angels are doing here, and what they've been doing so far in the Gospel of Luke.

They are sent to make known good news of great joy for all people.

Verse 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ, the Messiah, God's chosen Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

This will be a sign for you, they say.

You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.

See, the right time has come.

God is fulfilling his promise of a coming Savior.

He's been born in Bethlehem, which literally translates to house of bread.

Here's where we can zoom in on.

See, it's it's as though in verse 13 the angels just can't hold themselves back anymore.

They burst out into praise.

There was suddenly with this one angel a multitude of heavenly hosts, the whole armies of heaven, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.

It's in this twofold announcement that I think we find the true significance and beauty and meaning of Christmas.

Glory to God in the highest.

Well, we might wonder what is glory?

See, we ascribe glory to ruling monarchs, to champion athletes, to dazzlingly sunny mornings, but what is it?

We could say it's the splendor, honor, radiance, overwhelming beauty of that which is truly magnificent.

So the Bible has a lot to say about God's glory.

The Old Testament Hebrew word for glory is this word chabad, which I included in my notes just because it's fun to say.

It communicates both splendor and heaviness.

It's what makes God dazzlingly and overwhelmingly good and beautiful.

This is what we're talking about.

We talk about God's glory, his chabad.

We see it in 2 Chronicles chapter 7, particularly manifest in the temple.

2 Chronicles 7 · chapter mention

We see it very famously in Exodus 33, where Moses asks the Lord, please show me your glory, to which the Lord responds that he'll make his glory pass by, as it were.

And Moses can view it, but only through a cleft in a rock, because the Lord says, You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.

God makes it clear that no finite, sinful human being can handle God's chabad with hashtag no filter.

But Numbers 14 gives us a promise.

It promises God's people that one day all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.

See, this word chabad gets picked up in the New Testament with the Greek word doxa.

We get this word doxology from this word.

It appears in verse 9 when the glory of the Lord shines all around.

See, it's on the occasion of Christ's birth that these shepherds catch a glimpse of God's glory filling the earth, just like it's been promised.

But notice that the angels aren't just describing God's glory, they're ascribing glory to God in verse 14.

Glory to God in the highest.

So, what does it mean to give glory to God?

It's not as though God is lacking any glory.

He's infinitely glorious, magnificent, resplendent, dazzling in himself as such.

He's not looking in this moment for an angelic self-esteem boost, but God delights to have his glory, that which makes him truly beautiful, proclaimed and made known, perhaps especially to those who are lowly, like shepherds.

Glory to God and the highest, the angels praise.

Above all else, to the nth degree, imagine the most glorious thing you can, and the angels are saying, God's glory is more greater still.

See, it's no coincidence that God's highest glory is proclaimed at the birth of this Christmas child.

God delights to make his beauty known to ordinary people through easy to overlook means.

This lowly baby born to peasant parents in a backwater town is the occasion for God's greatest glory.

Think about that for a second.

The beauty of his gracious heart is filling the earth.

See, it's on this side of Christ's birth that we can't talk about God's glory in ambiguous terms or ethereal terms.

It becomes like Christian ease sometimes, doesn't it?

Glory to God.

What are we talking about?

If we take seriously what Luke is telling us here, we cannot talk about God's glory without relating to Christ.

If we, like Moses, want God to show us more of his glory, to reveal to us what makes him truly beautiful and radiant, we must make the journey by faith to meet Christ, where God has made his highest glory known.

We cannot know God's glory apart from this Christmas child.

But if we come to him by faith, we behold that which makes God truly dazzling.

Glory to God in the highest.

God's unrivaled, dazzling beauty is being made known through this promised child.

But the angels continue.

And on earth, peace among those with whom God is pleased.

I can't read these verses without thinking of one of my favorite Christmas tunes, David Bowie and Bing Crosby singing Peace on Earth, Little Drummer Boy.

If you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about.

I love this song.

Well, I love the whole video.

If you've seen the video, you're gonna see five minutes of the most awkward banter between two music greats that you've ever seen.

It's worth a Google.

But when they get to singing this duet, David Bowie sings this soaring and haunting chorus of peace on earth, can it be?

We all desire peace, don't we?

We desire things to be as they should be.

David Bowie sees peace like it's far off, like it's something we can only aspire to.

And the closest thing he gets to offering a solution to bringing us to this peace that we all desire is this.

He says, every child must be made aware, every child must be made to care, care enough for his fellow man to give all the love that he can.

And I love that.

I love that the idea here is that we would communicate empathy.

And we would desire the best for our children and the best for the next generation.

And that's good as far as it goes, but let me ask you this.

Does it go far enough?

See, since that song came out in 1977, have we seen more empathy?

Have we seen greater peace realized?

Could something be so broken in our very human condition that it corrupts the peace we so desperately desire to see?

See, God's word in Scripture teaches us that we were created to enjoy a perfect peace, a perfect harmony and delight with God and with one another.

But through the transgression of our first parents, of our first parents, that peace with God became alienation and enmity.

And we inclined away from this peace with one another and towards competition and hostility.

And friends, doesn't that describe the experience we see in the world around us?

But into this enmity and hostility, God speaks peace.

The Greek word here is irene, from which we get the word irenic.

It picks up on the Hebrew word shalom.

And this is the Bible saying that peace goes beyond just the mere absence of conflict.

Peace is the renewal, the restoration, the reconciliation of all things under God.

It is the reordering of all things for the well-being that God has purposed for creation.

Everything is as it's meant to be.

So it's no coincidence that God's erene, his shalom is proclaimed on earth on the night of Christ's birth.

Everything on earth has been made as it is meant to be.

Peace on earth is being brought about not through education or more empathy or the hard work, but through God's action on our behalf.

This child, the one whom God has given us, is the one to do for humankind what we cannot do for ourselves, to restore and redeem and renew peace among those with whom God is pleased.

So we cannot miss what's so significant here about this Christmas child.

He is the means through which God will work his peace on earth, restore a fallen humanity to himself, and bring his shalom to bear upon those who trust in him.

Glory to God and peace on earth through Christ.

And God's glory and peace announced by the angels at Christ's birth must lead us to the second announcement of God's glory and peace revealed to us in the shadow of the cross.

See, it's later on in Luke's gospel, we were in chapter two, it's in chapter 19 that Jesus is entering into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday, which leads to his crucifixion on the first Good Friday.

As Jesus enters Jerusalem, he's heralded by a crowd who's echoing the proclamation of the angels at his birth.

This crowd is saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

Did you catch that?

That's no accident.

That's not a coincidence.

Glory and peace are found in the shadow of the cross.

Of glory, John writes, shortly after the triumphal entry, that Jesus gathered his disciples and tells them this that the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

And he goes on to say that he said this to show by what death he was going to die.

God's glory was displayed to the shepherds at his birth.

Jesus is now most fully glorified, shown to be beautiful and dazzling and magnificent through his substitutionary death and atonement upon the cross, that which makes us at peace with God.

It is by this death that Jesus puts the power of death to death, so that by his resurrection we who are in Christ may have new life in his name.

It's through a simple, childlike faith in what Jesus has done for us that we can behold the glory of God in Jesus' birth, his death and resurrection, and we have hope that we too will share in this glory for all eternity.

Friends, this is what makes God so glorious, so beautiful.

His heart revealed to us the lowly at his birth and through his cross.

Paul writes of peace in Romans 5.1.

Given the cross, given Christ's resurrection, since we have been justified, since we've been made right with God, writes Paul, by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

See, whereas our disobedience left us alienated and in enmity with God, now through Christ's perfect obedience and self-sacrifice on our behalf, we can enjoy perfect shalom with God again.

Free from fear or condemnation, we can have a hope for a future where Christ's peace, his shalom, fills the whole earth.

So, friends, I might safely suggest there's more for us to celebrate this Christmas than a snugly baby, though there's not less to celebrate than that.

This child brings God's glory, his dazzling magnificence, and he brings God's peace, his reconciliation and restoration to us lowly and broken people.

He restores to us what was lost by sin.

And if we have caught a glimpse of Christ by faith, we can say with John, we have seen his glory.

Glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Friends, we have no manger to go to tonight.

We can't behold the Christ child presented to us in that way.

But God is not done revealing his extraordinary glory and peace to us, lowly people, through ordinary means.

Reformer Martin Luther tells us scripture is the manger in which we find the Christ child.

If we want to know God's glory and his peace, we discover it in his word.

And we come to his table.

Another reformer named John Calvin reflected that it might have seemed rather absurd for shepherds to seek a glorious God in a lowly place like a manger.

And yet, he writes, this method of proceeding, which might appear absurd and almost ridiculous, the Lord pursues towards us every day.

Having promised to us spiritual righteousness, by a small portion of bread and wine, he seals the eternal life of the soul.

In other words, God pledges his glory and peace, that same glory and peace announced at the first Christmas through Jesus' body and blood given to us.

Even through unremarkable means like bread and wine, we come to the greater house of bread to receive the bread of heaven.

So, friends, Christ promises you the very glory and peace proclaimed on that first Christmas night.

Would you receive it?

Would you come to the Christ child and ask him to reveal God's glory and bring peace to your life even tonight?

Look no further to find glory and peace than in Jesus.

Journey to him by faith and return glorifying and praising God.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace with those with whom he is pleased.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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May God bless you and keep you today and every day.