The King’s Arrival - Luke 2:10-14
On Saturday, November 2, former President, now President Elect Donald J. Trump visited Salem, Virginia. On that particular day, there was significant buzz in the Roanoke Valley over his visit. People were gathering at the airport to see his plane. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people gathered along the road in order to try to catch a glimpse of his Presidential motorcade.
And of course, thousands more were waiting inside and outside the Salem Civic Center to hear him speak.
I wanted to take you all down memory lane, a whole month ago, because that’s probably the closest we’ll ever get here in America, to waiting on a king to arrive.
I bring that up because that is the sort of fanfare you’d expect for a king! You’d expect the streets to be lined, and thousands of people waiting where he will deliver a speech to the people.
And yet, the greatest king to ever set foot on the earth didn’t have a reception quite like that. In fact, very few people knew of his arrival and some of those people were shepherds.
The good news of the promised King’s arrival is the greatest source of joy for all people.
If you’re taking notes, our passage can be broken down into three parts: first, there was the news of joy, second, we read about the scope of joy, and lastly, we see the response to joy.
Today, birth announcements are something we receive in the mail. It’s typically a postcard with a picture of a baby sleeping peacefully on it. Then whoever opened the birth announcement goes to their spouse, tells them the good news, gets out a magnet and puts it on the refrigerator, where it sits for about a month before making its way into the trash can.
Luke 2:10-14 describes the birth announcement of Jesus Christ. But his birth announcement was a little bit different. No postcards were involved in his announcement, rather, angels announced his birth.
Jesus wasn’t an ordinary baby! He was a king! And his arrival was so significant, so monumental, so world-changing that it had to be delivered by creatures not of this world.
The news of joy
Initially, there was only one angel who delivered the news of Jesus’ birth.
It’s like being excited to give away tickets to a concert, event, or theme park, because you know it’s going to make someone happy.
The angel’s news that the Anointed One, the Messiah, King Jesus had finally arrived would bring joy to all people. Which is exactly what the angel said, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
The angel had good news of great joy.
He had a message so wonderful that it would make people rejoice. And that message was, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
The whole world had been “groaning,” as the Apostle Paul put it in anticipation of a messianic king of promise to be delivered from a state of corruption and suffering brought on by sin. And that messianic king of promise would be a direct descendent of King David. In fact, this messianic king would be born in the exact same city as David - Bethlehem.
Jesus, this great king of promise would be the perfect king that the world had been waiting on from the very beginning. God promised Adam and Eve a deliverer in Genesis 3:15.
And David himself even understood that God would one day send a perfect king to save his people. It’s what David meant in Psalm 110:1, “The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.””
The language is somewhat obscured by our English translation, but David was saying that the LORD, Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, said, to his Lord, David’s Lord, the Anointed One, David’s Messiah and Savior, ‘stay here with me in heaven until the appointed time to go conquer your enemies.”
In other words, David understood that one day, God was going to send from heaven his Messiah, the Christ, to save his people. In case you’re wondering, Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name. It’s a title. Christ literally means “anointed one.”
And of course, Jesus is the anointed one who would conquer the world.
This is precisely what the angel is getting at with the shepherds when he said, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The angel is making reference to Psalm 110. He’s essentially saying, “Listen up shepherds, the Messianic figure who King David prophesied of - he was just born!”
One of the tragedies of our culture is that Christmas has been completely overtaken by consumerism. So much so, that there are countless people who don’t understand that the Christmas season is about the birth of Jesus Christ. Not to be too cliche, but Jesus is the reason for the season!
But what’s perhaps even sadder is the number of professing Christians who could tell you that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ, but couldn’t tell you why it’s important. They wouldn’t be able to tell you why you should care!
They know it’s supposed to be joyous and happy, but they probably couldn’t tell you why it’s joyous and happy.
The short answer is Jesus came to earth in order to save you and me from our sins. And that whole concept is buried in that one little word used by the angel in verse 11: “Savior.”
The Apostle Paul makes this abundantly clear in 1 Timothy 1:15, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners…” Jesus is a Savior because he saves his people from their sins.
But one of the greatest challenges in ministry and as a Christian in general is convincing people that they’re sinners who need salvation. After all, who likes to think of himself or herself as a sinner? No one, right? Most of us prefer to think of ourselves as good people who occasionally make mistakes.
We all want to believe that people are born inherently good, but due to experiences and challenges in life, they do bad things. And so, the concept of hell seems mean and excessive. Why would God send good people to hell?
But as the late R.C. Sproul used to say, there are no good people. Jesus said the same thing to the rich young ruler. Remember how the rich young ruler said, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”
17 So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but God.”
I had a friend who worked in the jail and he told me there is a moral hierarchy among prisoners. Even prisoners who have committed all sorts of heinous crimes want to convince themselves that they’re not that bad! And usually we can convince ourselves of just that as long as we compare ourselves to other people.
You’ll always be able to find someone who you think is “worse” than you, but that’s not the comparison the Bible makes.
You and I must compare ourselves to God’s perfect, holy, standard. And when we compare ourselves to that, suddenly, the playing field is leveled. No one is good, no not one.
The Bible doesn’t teach that people are basically good. The Bible teaches that all people are fallen sinners and that sin separates you from God. The only thing we deserve is eternal condemnation.
Your only hope and my only hope for salvation is for God to do something. And by his great immeasurable grace, he did do something. He sent Jesus to stand in our place and take the punishment for our sin on the cross.
Charles Spurgeon once said, “There is no sin so great that the blood of Christ cannot wash it away.”
We must understand why you and I need Jesus! We must understand what he’s saving us from in order to understand why this is such good news of great joy! A right understanding of sin helps you see the beauty and graciousness of the gospel.
The birth of Jesus Christ was good news of great joy because it was the first step towards accomplishing our redemption.
The scope of joy
The 17th century painter, Rembrant, has a fascinating painting of our passage. In his painting the angel appears out of the darkness of night in all of his glorious splendor to a chaotic scene. Shepherds are running all over the place, the cattle and sheep are running every which way.
And of course, Rembrandt is known for his realism and you have to imagine that the scene must have looked something like that! It probably was chaotic!
Which of course explains why the first thing out of the angel’s mouth was, “Fear not!” Do not be afraid!
Easier said than done! Put yourself in the shepherd's shoes for a moment… you’re laying there asleep when out of nowhere you wake up to an angel appearing in the sky?! It had to have been the most shocking moment of their entire lives. After all, angels appeared to them.
It really does beg the question… Why did the angels appear to the shepherds?
Undoubtedly, Rembrandt was an artistic genius because he really captures this element of our passage so well! He contrasts the beauty of the angels with the grotesque, gremlin-like figure of the shepherds. There’s one shepherd in the painting who’s staring back at you and he looks odd and deformed. Who wants to be immortalized like that? I didn’t paint it, Rembrandt did.
And the point that I think Rembrandt is trying to capture artistically is that the shepherds aren’t who you’d expect to be the first to learn about the birth of Jesus Christ. They’re ugly men who have to deal with nasty animals on a daily basis.
You’d expect the angels to appear to the priests at the temple in Jerusalem. Or perhaps a powerful king.
My point is, you’d expect the angels to appear to important, influential, powerful people, not powerless lowlifes like shepherds. They were, after all, the low men on the societal totem pole. No one cared about the shepherds.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is precisely the point! They were forgettable, insignificant people and yet, in God’s infinite wisdom chose to tell them first about the birth of Jesus Christ.
Isn’t that exactly what the angel said to the shepherds? Look at verse 10 again, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
The good news of salvation through Jesus Christ is good news for everyone. There’s an allusion here to the fact that the Lord will break down the dividing wall of hostility and will ultimately eliminate the Jew/Gentile distinction.
But the broader point that the Lord is making by sending the angels to the shepherds first was to help them understand that the birth of Jesus Christ, the Lord’s messianic king was good news for people like them. There is no elitism in the kingdom of God. Which is a stark contrast from what was developing in Judaism among the Pharisees and Sadducees. They thought of themselves as religious elites.
And so, God by sending angels to these shepherds is saying the promised king is going to save people like you too. Jesus didn’t come to earth to atone for the sins of just the rich and powerful. He came to atone for the sins of people who are poor, powerless, insignificant too!
The gospel of Jesus Christ doesn’t care about your background or where you were born. In God’s kingdom there are no distinctions or ethnic priorities. The gospel of Jesus Christ is an open invitation to all people to taste and see that the Lord is good.
Romans 10, “...everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
And God was illustrating this fact by appearing to shepherds first. Jesus’ birth was good news for people like them! It is truly an indiscriminate message of good news for all people.
It doesn’t matter who your parents are, or what you’ve done, the gospel is good news for you.
Which stands in stark contrast to the world we live in doesn’t it? Our culture doesn’t seek to find common ground among people, no it wants to divide us based upon our ethnicity, socio-economic status, sexual proclivities, and background.
Paul reminds us in Galatians 3, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
According to God’s word there are only two groups of people: those who trust in Jesus Christ for their salvation and those who do not.
This good news of great joy isn’t complicated. In fact, the shepherds were given a sign that was directly tied to this wonderful promise of forgiveness of sins. And that sign was “baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” The good news of great joy is a person with a face and a name - Jesus Christ.
The response to joy
And so there is only one appropriate response to this glorious news: doxological worship. Worship that praises God. Which is exactly what the angles do.
Out of nowhere, a multitude of angels, which is a military term, appear and begin to praise God. An army of angels begin to sing to the Lord: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
It was an angelic chorus! They were singing out to the Lord! Obviously, in our text Luke says the angels were “saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
His point being, they had something to say… which is true! But we’re not told explicitly how they expressed their message. The structure of “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” is poetic in nature which suggests it was a song.
Basically every Christmas hymn and carol mentions something about angels singing - and those hymns are making reference to this part of Luke 2. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear ends each stanza with “to hear the angels sing.”
The lyrics from What Child is This says, “This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing…” Or how about the title of Charles Wesley’s famous hymn, Hark the Herald Angels Sing!
I recently had a conversation where I was reminded that all music is communication - every song has a message. And undoubtedly, the angelic chorus was communicating a message to those shepherds on that dark night.
And that message was, “Glory to God in the highest,” or praise God to the highest degree… why? Because “...on earth [there is] peace among those with whom he [God] is pleased!”
God’s glory was manifested in Jesus Christ. John makes this point in his prologue: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The glory of God had come down to earth in Jesus Christ to save his people from their sins.
It’s interesting because the Greek word for ‘peace’ that the angels use is eirēnē, which refers to reconciling peace that establishes relational harmony. Which is exactly what Jesus accomplished in his sin-atoning death on the cross. He took the punishment for our sins upon himself so that we can have peace with God.
And all of this is a sign of God’s electing love. The commentator Matthew Henry wrote, “God's good-will in sending the Messiah introduced peace in this lower world, slew the enmity that sin had raised between God and man, and resettled a peaceable correspondence.”
The lyrics from Hark the Herald Angels Sing capture the overall message of the angels so well: “Hark! the herald angels sing, "Glory to the newborn King: peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!””
You and I have peace with God when we recognize and believe that Jesus took your sins and paid for them on the cross.
I’d be willing to bet that every one of us knows someone who doesn’t claim to be a Christian, but is an incredibly nice person who would give the shirt off their back if you needed it. We’re all thankful for friends like that.
But one of my theories is that their kindness is a way to hedge their bets. Perhaps they are naturally nice people, but I often speculate that they are also motivated to be a kind person just in case at the end of their life they find out they were wrong. Then they can say to God, “look how nice of a person I was! I would give anyone the shirt off my back!”
And the Lord will say, “ I never knew you: depart from me, you worker of iniquity.”
You see, the angels' whole point in their song of praise is to impress upon the shepherds and all of us that peace with God is something that He establishes. You and I cannot establish peace with God on our own. We need someone to do it for us - and that person is Jesus Christ.
God out of his abundant love and grace established peace for you and me through Jesus Christ. What you and I cannot do on our own, he did for us.
And it’s for that reason, we sing praises to God.
Jesus Christ in the flesh to redeem his people from their sins is a sign of God’s grace and love.
There’s a stereotype in cultural Christianity that Christians always have to be happy. And because they think this, they have an inauthentic, manufactured happiness where a smile is permanently plastered on their face regardless of what they’re going through. The thing that is so sad is that they know they’re supposed to have joy, but too often they can't tell you why.
Martin Luther once said, "If you possess faith, your heart cannot do otherwise than laugh for joy in God... For how can the heart remain sorrowful when it entertains no doubt of God’s kindness to it?" Deep-seated Christian joy comes from knowing there is no stain of sin that cannot be washed clean by the blood of Christ.
And it all began when Jesus was born “wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Amen. Let’s pray together.
