The Christmas Story: Luke 2:8-20: The Angels and the Shepherds

We all want to be the first to know the news, especially if it is good news. Isn’t it interesting who God choose to be the first to know about the birth of the Savior? Nobody rich or famous of powerful or wise. No, God sent his angels to poor shepherds. Why do you think he did that?

LUKE 2:8-20: THE ANGELS AND THE SHEPHERDS

INTRODUCTION

We see angels and shepherds in a hundred different scenes every Christmas. They seem to be so perfect for the season. Angels are beautiful and shepherds are picturesque.
But have you ever thought about how odd it was that shepherds would have been the first to know about the birth of the Savior.

Nobody rich or famous, no great rulers, no wise scholars, no admired religious leaders found out until later.
But God chose some of the lowliest people on earth to know the secret.
Shepherds seem to us picturesque, but to people in that day shepherds were looked down upon.

Shepherds had the reputation for being dirty and smelly and not very religious.
Their work tied them down and made it impossible for them to attend religious observances.
They had the reputation for sometimes confusing other people’s property with their own.
Sometimes they were accused of pasturing their flocks on other people’s land.
I think the shepherds in our Christmas story were good and useful people, but they weren’t people who got much respect.

But isn’t it appropriate that the first people to know about Jesus—besides Mary and Joseph—were the kind of people that would be most attracted to Jesus during his time on earth?
Remember, that few of the high-class people cared much for Jesus. The people who loved him best were sinners, tax collectors, Samaritans, prostitutes, and poor people.

Text: Luke 2:8-20

I. Imagine the scene: “An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.”

A. It was night time.

The shepherds, we read, were in the fields watching over their sheep. They would have taken turns staying awake to raise the alarm if thieves or wild animals threatened their flock.
But when the angel showed up, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, they were awake in an instant…and they were filled with fear. We all remember the words we learned in our Christmas plays: “They were sore afraid.”
Every time in the Bible when an angel appeared to anyone, we read that they were terrified.
And the angels always say, “Fear not!”
And that is what the angel said to these shepherds.

B. So the angel said, “Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

C. Let’s look at the word “Savior.” In the Bible, Savior almost always refers to God himself.

In Luke 1:46-47 Mary says,
“My soul magnified the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

Luke begins this chapter with a reference to Caesar Augustus, Emperor of the greatest empire that the world had ever known: Caesar Augustus, the Emperor of Rome.

Did you know that Caesar had stamped on his coins: “Augustus, Savior, Son of God”? People really worshiped him.
Luke is trying to show us that what Caesar thought he was, Jesus really was: the Savior, the Son of God.

D. Jesus is Savior because he sets us free from the guilt and power of sin.

Jesus is Savior because he grants forgiveness for all our failures.
Jesus is Savior because he heals our sin-sick hearts.
Jesus is Savior because he is our constant companion all the way to the end of the road.
Jesus is Savior because he sets us free from our dread of death and promises eternal life.

II. And then 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 among those on whom his favor rests.”

A. “Host” means army.

The ancient people called the stars the “heavenly host.” They thought of the stars as spiritual beings.
They also called the angels of God the “heavenly host.”

Sometimes they combined the two ideas and thought of the stars as angels.
I picture the stars being gathered together and sweeping down to earth to sing their song to the shepherds. It must have been quite a sight!

B. The angel chorus anticipates the joyful peace that Jesus, the Prince of Peace was to bring to all who would put their faith in him as their Lord and Savior.

People complain about this song of the angels. They say, “That was almost 2000 years ago, and look at all the wars that have afflicted the world and still go on today.”
The “peace” the angels promised doesn’t mean that suddenly all the people of the world would be transformed to goodness and would love one another.
The “peace” the angels promised doesn’t even mean that the lives of faith believers will be free from heartache and struggle and pain.

The “peace” the angels promised means all the blessings of salvation.
It means peace with God. Like in the Christmas hymn:

“Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.”

C. Let’s go back to verse 12: “And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

The first part of the sign was the swaddling cloths. That would show that he was a newborn.
In some countries, even today, mothers wrap their newborn babies in swaddling bands because they believe that that will make their bones grow straight.

The second part of the sign is that the baby would be lying in a manger. A “manger” is a feeding box for animals. There would be only one baby lying in a manger. The other babies would be in beds.
With those clues, the shepherds would be sure to find the right baby.

III. We need to remember that the nativity wasn’t as pretty in real life as it is on the Christmas cards.

A. That stable was dirty and dark and cold.

There wasn’t any clean linen to wrap the baby in.
There wasn’t any warm water to bathe the baby with.
There wasn’t any soft bed to lay the baby in.
Mary was very young. She was weary from the journey, and this was her first baby.
Joseph did what he could. There must have been a midwife there to help, but it was a difficult time for the new mother.

B. What a surprise, when the shepherds came bumbling in with their amazing story about the angels!

We read that all who heard the shepherds’ story wondered what to make of what they had heard. We don’t even know whether anyone believed the shepherds’ story.
Little Jesus must have looked pretty ordinary. Forget the halo over his head and the angels hovering overhead.

I think the visit of the shepherds was especially for Mary and Joseph.
Mary and Joseph must have wondered if those angels they had seen 9 months before were real, or if they had just imagined things.
But the shepherds’ story of their encounter with the angels gave Mary and Joseph assurance that this new baby really was the Promised One, the Savior of the world.

APPLICATION

In verse 19 we read: “But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.”

Mary had a lot to think about. She has to put together all the pieces of the amazing thing that has occurred to her.
She would spend the rest of her life thinking about the meaning of this great thing that she had been part of.

And in verse 20 we read, “And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”

Life was never the same for the shepherds either. Whether anyone believed their story or not, they knew that what they had seen that night was real.
They knew that they had been in on the greatest event that had happened yet in the world.

I will leave you with two lessons from this story.

Let’s be like Mary. Let’s ponder the story in our hearts until it becomes real to us and we understand and feel what it means that Jesus is our Savior.

And let’s be like the shepherds. Let’s glorify and praise God that we have been privileged to know the story of God’s great love in sending us his Son, our Savior.

The Christmas Story: Matthew 2:13-18: What Happened after Christmas

What was the next thing that happened in the lives of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus after the wise men packed up and went home? This sad event helps us to understand what the Christmas story really means to us.

MATTHEW 2:13-18: WHAT HAPPENED AFTER CHRISTMAS

Christmas is over and past. But what comes next?

Today I’m going to read to you what happened to Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus after the wise men said good bye and began their long journey home.

MATTHEW 2:13-18

This is not a story you see illustrated on Christmas cards or acted out in Christmas pageants.
It isn’t a cute story and it doesn’t make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Isn’t it strange that this little baby called “Immanuel,” “God with Us,” is now fleeing for his life? “Immanuel” is on the run.
Isn’t it strange that after the angels sing “Peace on earth” the Prince of Peace is now a homeless refugee?
Scholars tell us that there were probably 20 or 30 little boys under two-years-old in Bethlehem at that time.
Isn’t it terrible that the birth of the Savior of the world was the direct cause of so many little children being torn from their mothers’ arms and cruelly murdered by Herod’s soldiers?

But this story is important to us because it helps us understand the sorrow that surrounded God’s sending his son into the world.

I. Although astrology—telling fortunes by the stars—was forbidden to the Israelites, God spoke to heathen astrologers in a language they knew. These were the “wise men” we read about in the Christmas story.

A. It is interesting that when God wanted to give Jewish shepherds the message of his Son’s birth, he sent a company of angels to them. And when he wanted to call pagan astrologers, he sent a sign in the sky. God speaks to people of different backgrounds in ways that each can understand.

B. These men, dwelling in heathen darkness as they were, were also open to God’s message and took the trouble and expense of the long journey to come and worship the Savior.

C. The story shows these men as not only “wise” but also as men of great faith.

Though Jesus was only a baby and they saw no angels or miracles and heard no teaching, they fell down before the Baby and worshiped him, presenting him, out of their treasures, precious gifts.

II. We read that when the wise men told Herod what they had learned—that a new king had been born in Israel—he became frightened. He determined to kill Jesus.

A. But God warned Joseph in a dream and Joseph obeyed.

B. It was a hard journey.

Joseph and Mary had no time to pack.
It was 200 miles to Egypt. Mary and Joseph were poor people. I doubt they could have afforded the donkey you see on the Christmas cards. They probably walked the whole way.
They would be refugees in a strange land.
So how did they survive? I think they sold the gold, frankincense, and myrrh the wise men had brought to the baby Jesus.

III. But back in Bethlehem Herod sent his soldiers to kill every boy child in Bethlehem under two-years-old. That way he thought he would be sure to get rid of this “new king” that had been born there.

A. King Herod was a brave, cruel ruler. He was paranoid, always imagining that someone was plotting against him. He had one of his wives and three of his sons executed unjustly.

This story troubles many Christians. Why didn’t God save the lives of those poor children who died that day? We don’t know.
We don’t know why awful things happen in the world. But we believe in the resurrection. We believe that God can make up for the injustices that occur in our world.
The story reminds us that suffering is never far from the joy of Christmas.

B. Catholic Christians honor the murdered children as the first Christian martyrs. Their feast day—“Holy Innocents’ Day”—is celebrated on December 28. The Orthodox Churches celebrate Holy Innocents’ Day on December 27.
They remember these children and pray for innocent people everywhere who suffer from the injustices in the world.

On Holy Innocents Day in Bethlehem, children still gather in the church of the Nativity to sing a hymn in memory of the children who died so long ago.

IV. This story reminds us that trouble followed Jesus from start to finish.

A. Even when he was a baby, someone wanted to kill him.

Jesus came into a world that mostly rejected him. And most of the world still does.

B. The prophet Isaiah wrote hundreds of years before Jesus was born. He foretold that God’s Servant would be “a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief.”

“He was despised and rejected of men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid as it were our faces from him;
he was despised and we esteemed him not.
But he was wounded for our transgression;
he was bruised for our iniquities,
and upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,
and with his stripes we are healed.”

There was tragedy in Jesus’ life—from the murder of these little boys and to rejection and trouble all his life—even until his death on a cross.

C. One Christmas season, when I was teaching 6th grade, I assigned my students to write a holiday poem. One of my students, a girl named Laura Ralston, turned in this original poem:

“Christmas giving goes back quite a way;
When Christ was born it was Christmas day.
But the greatest gift the world ever received
Was also the one that cost the most grief.”

CONCLUSION

Let us remember that God became Man so that he could suffer
The story of Jesus involves rejection and suffering—suffering for Mary and Joseph. Later Jesus would be rejected and be killed.
Still later, Jesus’ disciples who followed in his footsteps would also suffer.
And the killing of faithful believers goes on today in several nations.

This story encourages us to move from the sentimentality of Christmas to the life of Jesus and remind us how much our salvation cost God.

These three must always be kept together in our minds: Christmas—Good Friday—Easter

At Christmas we remember that God sent his Son to be the Savior of the world

On Good Friday we remember that Jesus died to bring us to God.

And at Easter we remember that Jesus was victor over sin and death.

Because Jesus came, died, and rose again, we also will rise again to eternal life.

We walk with Jesus by the way of the cross, but there is also resurrection and glory at the end.