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.